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PROSECUTOR v SAM HINGA NORMAN - DECISION ON PRELIMARY MOTION BASED ON LACK OF JURISDICTION (JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE) - Case No.SCSL-2004-14-AR72(E) [2004] SCSL 7 (13 March 2004)
O
SPECIAL COURT FOR SIERRA LEONE
JOMO KENYATTA
ROAD • FREETOWN • SIERRA LEONE
PHONE: +1 212 963 9915
Extension: 178 7000 or +39 0831 257000 or +232 22 295995
FAX:
Extension: 178 7001 or +39 0831 257001 Extension: 174 6996 or +232 22
295996
THE APPEALS CHAMBER
|
Before:
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Justice Geoffrey Robertson, Presiding Justice George Gelaga
King Justice Emmanuel Ayoola Justice Renate Winter
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Registrar:
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Robin Vincent
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Date:
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13 March 2004
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PROSECUTOR
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Against
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SAM HINGA NORMAN (Case No.SCSL-2004-14-AR72(E))
|
DECISION ON PRELIMINARY MOTION BASED ON LACK OF
JURISDICTION
(JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE)
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Office of the Prosecutor:
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Defence Counsel:
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Desmond de Silva
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James Blyden Jenkins-Johnson
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Luc Côté
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Sulaiman Banja Tejan-Sie
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Walter Marcus-Jones
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Abdul Tejan-Cole
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Intervener: Michiel Pestman for Moinina Fofana
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THE APPEALS CHAMBER of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (“the
Special Court”);
SEIZED of a Preliminary Motion Based on Lack of Jurisdiction: Judicial
Independence, filed on 26 June 2003 on behalf of Sam Hinga Norman
(“the
Preliminary Motion”);
NOTING the Prosecution Response filed on 7 July
2003[1]; the
Applicant’s Reply filed on 14 July
2003[2]; and the
referral of the Motion to the Appeals Chamber under Rule 72(E) of the Rules of
Procedure and Evidence of the Special Court
(“the Rules”) on 17
September 2003[3];
NOTING the intervention by Moinina Fofana for which substantive
submissions were filed on 31 October
2003[4];
NOTING that an oral hearing was held on 5 November 2003;
HAVING CONSIDERED THE ORAL AND WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS OF THE PARTIES;
HEREBY DECIDES AS FOLLOWS:
I. INTRODUCTION
- This
ruling concerns a Preliminary Motion filed on 26 June 2003 on behalf of Sam
Hinga Norman (“the Applicant”), one of
the persons standing trial
before the Special Court for Sierra Leone (“the Court”) in Case No.
SCSL-2004-14[5]. The
Preliminary Motion was referred to the Appeals Chamber of the Court pursuant to
Rule 72(E) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence
of the Special Court
(“the Rules”).
- By
the Preliminary Motion the applicant challenges the jurisdiction of the Court to
try him.
- By
virtue of Rule 72(B) of the Rules, preliminary motions by an accused are
objections based on lack of jurisdiction; defects in the
form of indictment; the
denial of request for assignment of counsel; and abuse of process or
applications for severance of crimes
joined in one indictment under Rule 49, or
for separate trials under Rule 82(B).
- Rule
72(B) does not expressly describe a motion based on the fairness of a trial or
alleging an infringement of the right of an accused
to a fair hearing or, in
effect, seeking a reclusion of the judges as a preliminary motion. An objection
that the Court lacks judicial
independence is basically, and in substance, an
objection to the fairness of the trial and an allegation that the right of the
accused
to a fair hearing is likely to be infringed by the trial. Evidently, it
is to enable the applicant to find a platform within Rule
72 from which to raise
these issues as a threshold issue that the objection has been described as a
jurisdictional objection.
- Notwithstanding
that doubt may legitimately be entertained whether an allegation of real
likelihood of bias is a challenge to the
jurisdiction of the Court, the ground
of the objection raised by the applicant’s motion that the Court lacks
judicial independence
is sufficiently fundamental to make it imprudent to deny a
hearing of the Preliminary Motion on the merits and not to determine the
issues
raised by the Preliminary Motion.
II. THE SPECIAL COURT FOR SIERRA LEONE
- The
Court is established by an agreement made on 16 June 2002 between the United
Nations (“UN”) and the Government of
Sierra Leone to prosecute
persons who bear the greatest responsibility for serious violations of
international humanitarian law and
Sierra Leonean law committed in the territory
of Sierra Leone since 30 November
1996[6].
7. The
basic documents of the Court are:
(a) The Agreement between the UN and the Government of Sierra Leone (“the
Agreement”);
(b) The Statute of the Court which is annexed to the Agreement and forms an
integral part thereof (“the
Statute”)[7];
and
(c) The Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Special Court.
- The
issues raised by the Preliminary Motion do not involve an interpretation of
these basic documents. It is thus unnecessary to have
recourse to supplementary
means of interpretation, including, for example the preparatory works of the
Agreement and the circumstances
of its conclusion other than to state in summary
such circumstances as are contained in the preamble of the Agreement. This
disclosed
that the initiator of the Agreement was the UN Security Council. By
its Resolution 1315 (2000) of 14 August 2000, the Security Council
expressed
deep concern “at the very serious crimes committed within the territory of
Sierra Leone against the people of Sierra
Leone and United Nations and
associated personnel and at the prevailing situation of
impunity”[8]. It
requested the Secretary-General to negotiate an agreement with the Government of
Sierra Leone to create an independent special
court to prosecute persons who
bear the greatest responsibility for the commission of serious violations of
international humanitarian
law and crimes committed under Sierra Leonean
law[9]. The Agreement
resulted from the negotiations held for the establishment of the Court pursuant
to the resolution.
- The
object and purpose of the Agreement is sufficiently clear from the preamble. It
is also sufficiently clear that the intention
of the parties to the Agreement is
to achieve that purpose through the judicial process by employing the mechanism
of a court deliberately
described as independent.
III. RELEVANT PROVISIONS OF THE BASIC DOCUMENTS
Provisions relating to Judges
- Article
2 of the Agreement provides for the composition of the Special Court and
appointment of judges.
- Briefly,
the Special Court is composed of a Trial Chamber and an Appeals Chamber with the
possibility of creation of a second Trial
Chamber. The Chambers are composed of
no fewer than eight judges, specifically described in the Agreement as
“independent judges.”
The number of judges may be brought up to
eleven on the creation of a second Trial Chamber. Of the eight judges five are
appointed
by the Secretary-General upon nominations forwarded by States and
three by the Government of Sierra Leone. Two of the judges appointed
by the
Secretary-General serve in the Trial Chamber together with one appointed by the
Sierra Leone Government, while three of the
five judges appointed by the
Secretary-General serve in the Appeals Chamber together with two appointed by
the Sierra Leone Government.
- Article
2(4) of the Agreement and Article 13(3) of the Statute provide that
“Judges shall be appointed for a three-year term
and shall be eligible for
re-appointment.”
13. Article 13(1) of the Statute provides
that:
The judges shall be persons of high moral character, impartiality and
integrity who possess the qualifications required in their respective
countries
for appointment to the highest judicial offices. They shall be independent in
the performance of their functions, and shall
not accept or seek instructions
from any Government or any other source.
- Rule
15 of the Rules provides that: “A Judge may not sit at a trial or appeal
in any case in which he has a personal interest
or concerning which he has had
any personal association which might affect his
impartiality.”
Provisions relating to Funding and
Management of the Court
- Article
6 of the Agreement provides for the funds of the Court in the following
terms:
The expenses of the Special Court shall be borne by voluntary
contributions from the international community. It is understood that
the
Secretary-General will commence the process of establishing the Court when he
has sufficient contributions in hand to finance
the establishment of the Court
and 12 months of its operation plus pledges equal to the anticipated expenses of
the following 24
months of the Court’s operation. It is further understood
that the Secretary-General will continue to seek contributions equal
to the
anticipated expenses of the Court beyond its first three years of operation.
Should voluntary contributions be insufficient
for the Court to implement its
mandate, the Secretary-general and the Security Council shall explore alternate
means of financing
the Special Court.
- Article
7 of the Agreement provides for the establishment by “interested
States” of a Management Committee “to assist
the Secretary-General
in obtaining adequate funding, and provide advice and policy direction on all
non-judicial aspects of the operation
of the Court, including questions of
efficiency, and to perform other functions as agreed by interested
States.” The Management
Committee is composed of important contributors
to the Special Court.
Provision regarding the Termination of the
Agreement
- By
virtue of Article 23 of the Agreement, the Agreement shall be terminated by
agreement of the Parties upon completion of the judicial
activities of the
Special Court.
IV. SUMMARY OF ARGUMENTS
- The
applicant by his counsel argues that the right to a fair hearing is breached
where there are legitimate grounds to fear that a
tribunal is not independent.
Absence of executive and legislative control over judicial salaries is an aspect
and mark of judicial
independence.[10] The
funding arrangements made for the Court in Article 6 of the Agreement and the
function of the Management Committee which consists
of representatives of donor
States create a legitimate fear of interference in justice delivery by the Court
through economic manipulation,
since, it was argued, donor States could indicate
their displeasure with any decision of the Court by withholding their
contribution
to the funds of the Court. With basically only three major donor
States funding the Court, the ability of the court to carry out
its judicial
activities will be impaired, if at least one of them were to withhold its
voluntary contribution to the funds, thereby
bringing the operations of the
court below the standard of judicial independence required of States as set out
in the International
Bar Association’s Minimum Standards of Judicial
Independence.[11] On
the strength of the case thus put, the applicant sought a declaration the
Special Court lacks jurisdiction over any of the accused
before it and prays
that proceedings be stayed pending the implementation of sufficient financial
guarantees.[12]
- For
their part the Prosecution argued that the Court is insulated from bias or
reasonable apprehension of bias by the selection process
of judges of the Court,
diplomatic immunity granted to judges of the Court, the merely advisory nature
of the role of the Management
Committee and the several structural safeguards
contained in the basic documents of the
Court.[13]
V. SAFEGUARD OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE
- Safeguard
of judicial independence takes several forms. However, since the question raised
by the motion falls within a narrow compass
it is unnecessary to enter into any
lengthy discourse of the concept of judicial independence or of the various
mechanisms usually
put in place to safeguard judicial independence.
- One
prominent safeguard of judicial independence in a democratic State is the
doctrine of separation of powers which, in regard to
the independence of the
judiciary, operates to reserve to the judiciary the exercise of judicial powers
of the State and protects
the judiciary from being so dependent on other arms of
Government as to raise a reasonable apprehension of a real likelihood that
judicial functions of the judiciary are performed under the influence of another
arm of Government or body.
- In
practice, in regard to the judiciary, there are various models of separation of
powers. However, in hardly any is the judiciary
required or expected to raise
revenue by itself to fund its operations so that it could maintain judicial
independence. Indeed, as
will be seen shortly, were the judiciary to run its
operations and pay its judges from moneys generated from its judicial activities
the apprehension of likelihood of bias would become more real and
reasonable.
- In
some models the executive deals with staffing and administration of the
judiciary, sometimes under the umbrella of a Ministry of
Justice. In others the
executive is excluded from participation in such process. In some models the
judiciary is self-accounting,
in others the budget of the judiciary is part of
the budget of a Ministry of Justice in which the judiciary is treated, at least
for budgetary purposes, as a department of the Ministry of Justice.
VI. FUNDING ARRANGEMENT AND INDEPENDENCE
- Where
the allegation is that the funding arrangement of a judiciary raises a real
likelihood of bias so that an accused entertains
a reasonable apprehension that
he cannot have a fair trial, much more is required than merely showing that the
court derives its
funding from a source which may be displeased by its
decisions. There are other considerations, the principal of which is whether
such funding arrangement leads to a real likelihood that the court will be
influenced by such arrangement to give decisions, not
on the merits of the case,
but to please the funding body or agency. Such factors as the obligation, moral
or legal, of the funding
body or agency and the guarantee of payment of judicial
remuneration, however the judiciary is funded, are relevant factors.
- Denial
of adequate funding of the judiciary which would emasculate its performance
while the payment of judicial remuneration remained
protected must be
distinguished from denial of funding where judicial remuneration is unprotected
and would therefore affect the
payment of judicial remuneration. The former is a
shirking of responsibility by the state to provide an efficient or any machinery
of justice, while the latter may raise a concern of real likelihood of judicial
bias. The conclusion seems clear that it is not every
inadequacy in funding
arrangement that leads to an inability of courts to dispense justice without
bias.
- It
has long been acknowledged that judicial independence rests on the twin pillars
of security of tenure of the judge and guarantee
of judicial remuneration and
its protection from the whims and caprices of governments or bodies charged with
the responsibility
of funding the judiciary.
27. As early as 1701 it
was provided by the Act of Settlement that:
Judges Commission be made Quamdiu se bene gesserint [that is, during
good behaviour] and their salaries ascertained and
established.[14]
Commenting on that English statute, Chief Justice Burgher, delivering the
lead opinion of the US Supreme Court in United States v.
Will[15],
said:
The English statute is the earliest legislative acknowledgment that control
over the tenure and compensation of judges is incompatible
with a truly
independent judiciary, free of improper influence from other forces within
government.[16]
In the same vein as in the Act of Settlement, several modern Constitutions
make provision for the security of tenure of judges and
for protection of
judicial remuneration. Thus, by section 138(1) of the Constitution of Sierra
Leone of 1991[17], it
is provided that:
The salaries, allowances, gratuities and pensions of Judges of the Superior
Court of judicature shall be charged upon the Consolidated
Fund.
Section 138(3) of the same Constitution provided that:
The salary, allowances, privileges, right in respect of leave of absence,
gratuity or pension and other conditions of service of a
Judge of the Superior
Court of Judicature shall not be varied to his disadvantage.
A similar but shorter provision to the same effect is contained in section 1
of Article III of the Constitution of the United
States[18] which
provides that:
. . . The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their
offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times,
receive for their
services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance
of office.
- Some
would reason that a safeguard of judicial independence is the payment of
handsome remuneration to judges. Another view, and this
would appear to be the
better view, is that the level of remuneration of a judge is an acknowledgment
of the high skill he possesses
and which he is expected to bring to the
discharge of his judicial function in order to enhance the quality of justice.
Be that as
it may, of more value in securing judicial independence are the
assurance and guarantee of security of tenure and guarantee and protection
of
the level and payment of judicial remuneration.
VII. THE MAIN QUESTION
- Notwithstanding
what would appear to be a digression to the wider area of the concept of
judicial independence relevant, perhaps,
as a backdrop to a consideration of the
main issue raised by the Preliminary Motion, the question in these proceedings,
in the final
analysis, falls within a narrow compass. The question relates to
the funding of the Court and it is whether funding of the Court
by voluntary
contribution of interested States coupled with the structure of the Management
Committee deprives the Court of the necessary
guarantees of independence and
impartiality.
- As
earlier stated, mere complaint about funding arrangements of a Court cannot by
itself be a ground for imputing a real likelihood
of bias to a judge. What is
material and has to be established is that such funding arrangements are capable
of creating a real and
reasonable apprehension in the mind of an average person
that the judge is not likely to be able to decide fairly. A rough and ready
test
which seems apt can be fashioned out of a passage in the lead opinion of Chief
Justice Taft in the U.S. Supreme Court case of
Tumey v.
Ohio[19]
where he said:
. . . the requirement of due process of law in
judicial procedure is not satisfied by the argument that men of the highest
honour
and the greatest self-sacrifice could carry it on without danger of
injustice. Every procedure which would offer a possible temptation
to the
average man as a judge to forget the burden of proof required to convict the
defendant, or which might lead him not to hold
the balance nice, clear, and true
between the State and the accused denies the latter due process of
law.[20]
In the U.S. case of Ward v. Village of
Monroeville[21],
the U.S. Supreme Court formulated a test thus:
whether the mayor’s situation is one which ‘would offer a
possible temptation to the average man as a judge to forget
the burden of proof
required to convict the defendant, or which might lead him not to hold the
balance nice, clear and true between
the State and the
accused...’[22]
- The
test in these two cases, adapted by substituting ‘Court’s’ for
‘mayor’s’ in the first line
in the passage above, seems apt
for the purpose of this case, having regard to the suggestion which is the pith
and substance of
the argument advanced by counsel for the applicant that the
funding arrangement of the Court is such as would reasonably be seen
as likely
to put pressure on the judges of the Court to convict the accused so that they
may thereby please the donor States to prevent
them from withholding their
contributions to the funds of the Court. Astonishing as the suggestion may seem,
and, indeed is, it is
one that evokes the need to apply the test stated above
and to examine whether it has any foundation in fact.
- Before
reverting to the present case, it is of interest to note, albeit very briefly,
one case in which the above test has been applied
to the advantage of the
accused and another in which it has been held inapplicable. All are cases
decided by the U.S. Supreme Court
which appears to have developed a rich
jurisprudence in this area of law.
- In
Tumey v
Ohio[23] the
facts, taken from the syllabus, are as follows: Under statutes of Ohio, offences
against stay prohibition, involving a wide range
of fines enforceable by
imprisonment may be tried without a jury before the mayor of any rural village
situated in the county (however
populous) in which offences occur. His judgment
upon the facts is final and conclusive unless so clearly unsupported as to
indicate
mistake, bias, or wilful disregard of duty. The fines are divided
between the State and the village. The village, by means of the
fines collected,
hires attorneys and detectives to arrest alleged offenders anywhere in the
county and prosecute them before the
mayor. In addition to his salary, the
mayor, when he convicts, but not otherwise, receives his fees and costs
amounting to a substantial
income. The fine offers means of adding materially to
the financial prosperity of the village, for which the mayor, in his executive
capacity, is responsible. It was held that the due process of law was denied the
defendant in the case. The court held that the mayor
had a pecuniary interest as
a result of his judgment such as to disqualify him. The court
said:
It appears from the evidence in this case, and would be plain
if the evidence did not show it, that the law is calculated to awaken
the
interest of all those in the village charged with the responsibility of raising
the public money and expending it, in the pecuniarily
successful conduct of such
a court. The mayor represents the village, and cannot escape his representative
capacity. [...] With his
interest as mayor in the financial condition of the
village, and his responsibility therefore, might not a defendant with reason
say
that he feared he could not get a fair trial or a fair sentence from one who
would have so strong a motive to help his village
by conviction and a heavy
fine?[24]
As a statement of principle the court said:
But it certainly violates the Fourteenth Amendment, and deprives a defendant
in a criminal case of due process of law, to subject
his liberty or property to
the judgment of a court the judge of which has a direct, personal, substantial,
pecuniary interest in
reaching a conclusion against him in his
case.[25]
- On
the other hand, in Dugan v.
Ohio[26] the
petitioner was convicted and fined by the mayor of a city for a violation of the
Ohio liquor law committed within the city limits.
The legislative powers of the
city were exercised by a commission of five, of whom the mayor was one, and its
executive powers by
the commission and a manager, who was the active executive.
The functions of the mayor, as such, were judicial only. His sole compensation
was a salary fixed by the vote of the other commissioners, and payable out of a
general fund to which the fines accumulated in his
court under all laws
contributed, the salary being the same whether the trial before him resulted in
convictions or acquittals. It
was held that the mayor’s relation to the
fund and to the financial policy of the city were too remote to warrant a
presumption
of bias towards conviction in prosecutions before him as a
judge.[27]
- In
this case direct pecuniary interest in the result of a trial is not suggested by
the applicant’s case. Nonetheless, it was
suggested that apprehension that
the funding of the Court may be so severely diminished were the court to render
decisions which
displease major donors to the funds of the court, to the
detriment of the ability of the Court to pay remunerations to judges, would
have
the same prejudicial consequences for the ability of the judges to dispense
justice fairly as if they had direct pecuniary interest
in the proceedings.
- The
position is sufficiently clear to enable it to be stated in the following
propositions:
- (a) A judge is
disqualified from adjudication where he has a direct, personal or pecuniary
interest in the litigation and, particularly,
in criminal trials where pecuniary
benefit accrues to him by his
convicting.[28] .
- (b) A judge is
not disqualified from adjudicating where there is no objective reason to infer
on any showing that failure to convict
(or acquit) in any case or cases would
deprive him of or affect his fixed
remuneration.[29]
- (c) A judge
should disqualify himself if a reasonable and informed person would believe that
there is a real danger of bias.
- (d) A
reasonable person will not rush to an assumption that a judge will violate his
oath and the duties of his office on a remote
and speculative belief that his
remuneration may be affected in any way by the decision he gives.
VIII. ABSENCE OF FACTUAL BASIS FOR
ALLEGATION.
- On
the true facts, it is manifest that the assumptions on which the applicant based
his challenge to the jurisdiction of the Court
are far-fetched and have no
factual basis that can support the contention that the funding arrangement of
the Court could reasonably
occasion the denial of a fair hearing. The judges of
the Court are on fixed term contracts of three years, though subject to
re-appointment.
The remuneration payable to each judge is certain and fixed by
the contract of appointment. The liability of the Court to pay such
remuneration
is not in any way conditional upon whether the parties to the Agreement
establishing the Court are able to raise voluntary
contributions to fund the
court, since, indeed, by Article 6 of the Agreement it is provided that:
“Should voluntary contributions be insufficient for the Court
to implement its mandate, the Secretary-General and the Security
Council shall
explore alternate means of financing the Special Court.” Finally, the
Agreement establishing the Court can only
be terminated by virtue of Article 23
of the Agreement “upon completion of the judicial activities of the
Special Court.”
- It
is clear from these indisputable facts that there is no way in which the
remuneration of the judges of the Court is tied to the
funding of the court by
voluntary contribution of donor States or can be subject to manipulation.
- The
concerns which engender the applicant’s motion are of limited scope and
relate only to the funding of the Court by voluntary
contribution. Reference by
counsel to the Canadian Supreme Court case Reference Re Remuneration of
Judges[30] seems
unnecessary beyond a mention of the now uncontroversial principle, which
applicant’s counsel stated the decision stood
for, that judicial salaries
must be protected from executive, legislative or managerial manipulation. The
issues discussed in that
case of circumstances in which reduction of judicial
salary may be permissible or whether judges may negotiate their salaries are
really not material to the determination of the main issue in this case. The
Canadian Supreme Court ruled that the way the reduction
of salaries was carried
out was unconstitutional. In our case, the question is whether the judges would
feel pressured to produce
results in the form of convictions in order to attract
sufficient funds for the Special Court, lest their salaries be reduced. Special
Court judges’ salaries are certain and fixed by the contract of
appointment. The reduction of judges’ salaries is in
itself unrealistic.
Similarly, although in the final analysis the ground on which an objection is
raised in this case boils down
to likelihood of bias, the bias alleged is not of
the same type as was discussed in the case of ex parte Pinochet (No.
2)[31] where the bias
alleged was not as to pecuniary interest of the judges in the result of the
proceedings, but one likely to be occasioned
by the close relationship of one of
the judges to a cause promoted by an intervener (Amnesty International) who was
in the rather
unusual circumstances of the case deemed to have been a
party.
- It
may well be stated, if only in an attempt at relative exhaustiveness, that if
the voluntary contributor States to the funds may
be said to have a
‘cause’ it is not a cause that is in issue in the case or that can
be said to be of controversy in
democratic societies. That ‘cause’
is that a man will not be condemned without a fair and public trial and that
there
must be an end to impunity of serious violations of international
humanitarian law. It is in furtherance of the ‘cause’
that the Court
in its Rules established a Defence Office for the purpose of ensuring the rights
of suspects and
accused.[32]
- Undoubtedly,
states which have contributed to the funds of the Court must have done so
because they believe in due process of law
and the rule of law. It is
far-fetched, preposterous and, almost, bad taste to suggest that donor states,
which in their national
practice promote and respect human rights and the rule
of law and promote such values internationally, would be committed to funding
and sustaining a court in the expectation that it will operate contrary to those
same values.
- Although
the objection of the applicant has been couched in terms of judicial
independence and bias, it is expedient and sufficient
to limit the determination
of the objection to the limited question that has been identified. The Court is
not one functioning as
an arm of a state in a particular legal order or system.
Its jurisdiction is of an extremely limited nature and the lifespan of the
Court
itself is predictably limited. It is for this reason that it is unnecessary to
examine at any length the functions of the Management
Committee, which in no way
approximates either to the executive or the legislature in a State nor wields
powers of such organs which
may be subject to review by the Special Court. The
Committee has no cause to influence and cannot, in performance of its role,
influence
the Court in the determination of cases before it.
- It
suffices for the determination of the Preliminary Motion to hold that the
funding arrangements of the Court cannot be reasonably
seen in any way to lead
to any real likelihood of bias in the Court in the determination of matters
before it.
IX. DISPOSITION
44. For all of the above reasons, this Preliminary Motion is dismissed.
|
Done at Freetown this 13th Day of March 2004
|
Justice Robertson
|
Justice King
|
Justice Ayoola
|
Justice Winter
|
|
Presiding
|
|
|
|
[Seal of the Special Court for Sierra Leone]
|
[1] Prosecution
Response to the Third Defence “Preliminary Motion based on Lack of
Jurisdiction: Judicial Independence”,
7 July 2003 (“Prosecution
Response”).
[2]
Reply – Preliminary Motion based on Lack of Jurisdiction: Judicial
Independence, 14 July 2003 (“Defence
Reply”).
[3]
Order Pursuant to Rule 72(E): Defence Preliminary Motion on Lack of
Jurisdiction: Judicial Independence, 17 September
2003.
[4] Reply to
the Prosecution Response to the Motion on Behalf of Moinina Fofana for leave to
intervene as an interested party in the
Preliminary Motion filed by Mr. Norman
based on Lack of Jurisdiction: Judicial Independence and Substantive
Submissions, 31 October
2003.
[5] The Preliminary
Motion was filed under Case No.SCSL-2003-08. Following the Decision and Order on
Prosecution Motions for Joinder
of 27 January 2004, and the subsequent Registry
Decision for the Assignment of a new Case Number of 3 February 2004, this new
case
number has been assigned.
[6] Agreement between
the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone on the Establishment of a
Special Court for Sierra Leone,
16 January 2002 (“Special Court
Agreement”), Article
1(1).
[7] Statute of
the Special Court for Sierra Leone, 16 January
2002.
[8] U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1315, 14 August 2000, p.
1.
[9] Ibid.
para. 1.
[10] Preliminary
Motion para.
2.
[11] See
ibid. para. 16, 17 and Defence Reply, para. 5 and
10.
[12]
Ibid, para.
22-23.
[13]
Prosecution Response, para. 9, 11,
13.
[14] Act of
Settlement, 12 & 13 Will. III, ch. 2, § III, cl. 7
(1701).
[15]United
States v. Will 449 U.S. 200
(1980).
[16]
Ibid. at p. 218.
[17] The
Constitution of Sierra Leone 1991, 24 September
1991.
[18] U.S.
Const. art. III, § 1 (2004).
[19]
Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510
(1927).
[20]
Ibid. at p.
532.
[21] Ward
v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972), citing Tumey, ibid.
[22] Ibid.
60.
[23]
Supra note 19.
[24]
Tumey v. Ohio, supra note 19, at p.
533.
[25] Tumey
v. Ohio, supra note 19, at p.
523.
[26] Dugan
v. Ohio, 277 U.S. 61
(1928).
[27]
Ibid., at p.
65
[28] See Ward
v. Village of Monroeville supra note 21 ; See Tumey v. Ohio, supra note
19.
[29]
Dugan v. Ohio, supra note 19.
[30]
Reference Re Remuneration of Judges of the Provincial Court of Prince Edward
Island [1997] 3 S.C.R.
3.
[31] R. v.
Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate ex parte Pinochet Ugarte (No. 2) [2000]
1 A.C.
119.
[32]
Rule 45 of the Rules.
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