*Attorney Seton-Cee and Commissioners

By: Our Staff Writer

Commissioners who were designated to spearhead the Independent Human Rights Commission (IHRC) of Liberia re-appeared before the Liberian Senate recently  following their initial rejection in confirming them.

Beedo-Wla Freeman, Joseph Cornormia, Losene Bility, Anthony Boakai and Esther-Seeton Cee are the five individuals appointed by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to run the Commission, but were last week rejected by members of the Liberian Senate on grounds that it would be a conflict of interest for the President to be calling for an amendment to the acts of the Commission while at the same time asking members of the Legislature to confirm its commissioners.

The naming the commissioners has been hampered because of questions over whether the commission would implement the Truth Commission’s recommendations. The Commission, according to the Act of the now disbanded Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), is expected to succeed the TRC in ensuring that its recommendations are implemented in the post-TRC period. One of the recommendations of the TRC’s draft final report, released in July of last year, implicated President Sirleaf and barred her from running for office for 30 years. Nonetheless, Sirleaf announced last month that she would seek a second term.

President Sirleaf told members of the legislature on Monday in her controversial State of the Nation address that there was a need for members of that body to revisit the Act, which created the Commission. At the same time she also called on members of the legislature to speed up the confirmation of commissioners.

Tuesday’s re-appearance of the Commissioners-Designate was more of a last-minute battle for them as each fought hard to convince the Senate’s Committee on Human Rights on the need to have them confirmed.

It is a difficult task for the upper level of the Liberian National Legislature which has some of its members implicated in the TRC’s Final Report, noticeably among them are Nimba County Senior Senator and former warlord Prince Johnson, Senator Adolphous Dolo of Nimba County, Senator Jonathan Banney of Rivercess County, Representative Saah Gbolie of Margibi County and Representative Edwin Snowe of Montserrado County.

The appointment of commissioners to the IHRC was heavily welcomed by many Liberians as it would have set the record straight on the life or death of the TRC reports or whether the commission’s report is enforceable in the first place.

But the President’s inability to first look at the act creating the Commission before appointing commissioners calls into question the general commitment of the regime to implement the TRC report.

The President further stated in her controversial State of the Nation address that too many resources were being poured into the work of the TRC. She also went on to say the report will be turned over to the Justice Ministry for review and some aspects of it might not be implementable.

Though the President has persistently said in the past that it was the responsibility of the people’s representative, meaning the National Legislature, to decide what really happens to the report, in her State of the Nation address she relieved the lawmakers and instead placed that responsilibity on Cllr. Christiana Tah and Solicitor-General Micah Wilkins Wright.

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Tags: Commissioners, Human, Limbo, Rights