MONROVIA – The constitutional provisions related to Retired Judges specifies that a Chief Justice, Associate Justices and Judges of Subordinate Courts must retire at the age of 70, and while they may complete cases they were already involved in, they cannot take on new cases after reaching that age.
Mandatory Retirement: Article 72(b) mandates that a Chief Justice must retire upon reaching the age of 70.
Completion of Pending Cases: The same article allows the Chief Justice to continue working on cases in which he/she was already involved in to render judgment or complete other judicial duties related to those specific cases.
According to Article 72(b), The Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court and judges of subordinate courts of record shall be retired at the age of 70; provided, however, that a justice or judge who has attained that age may continue in office for as long as may be necessary to enable him/her to render judgment or perform any other judicial duty in regard to proceedings entertained by him/her before he/she attained that age.
Legal luminaries say one of the reasons the outgoing Chief Justice is still hanging on in that position is purely to conclude the US$6 million Economic Sabotage case involving former Finance Minister Samuel Tweah and several other past members of the National Security Council (NSC).
The case involves allegations of Economic Sabotage, Fraud, and Misuse of Public Money, with specific details of financial transactions and misapplication contained in the 2024 indictment.
Tweah and his co-defendants had already lost their request to dismiss the indictment, at Criminal Court ‘C’ when they (defendants) filed a petition for prohibition before the retired Chief Justice Yuoh.
However, Tweah’s petition has been pending before Justice Yuoh since February of this year.
Tweah and his co-defendants are accused of authorizing the transfer of over L$1 billion and US$500,000 from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) to the Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) without statutory approval.
It is said that the long silence by justices of the Supreme Court, to decide on whether constitutionally retired Chief Justice Sie-A-Nyene Yuoh should stay on, to preside over new cases, has effectively paralyzed the high court’s activities for weeks.
This incident followed by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) challenging the extension of the office of Justice Yuoh, to hear new appeal cases beyond the constitutionally mandated retirement age of 70.
However, many legal practitioners criticize the silence from the bench suggesting that the Justices might have been evenly split on the issue of Yuoh’s recusal.
Others argue, if so, two outcomes are possible: The Justices could hand down a ruling that would not establish a binding precedent, leaving room for criticism and for interpretation.
Some of them have argued that the justices could decide to have the Tweah’s cases placed on a temporary hold, in the hope that a successor to Yuoh would have been confirmed by the Senate.
“This conspicuous silence is undermining the constitutional mandate of the Supreme Court and depriving party litigants of the right to free, fair and transparent justice,” a senior Supreme Court lawyer argued.
But that’s not the only danger posed by the silence. According to another senior lawyer, an even greater risk is “an indefinite stay” on the court activities.
Based on these arguments, it would seem that the outgoing Chief Justice may likely not agree to step aside from hearing the Tweah and several other new appeal cases. Pundits argue is it prudent for the outgoing Chief Justice to conclude this high-profile case that was filed before the High Court when was headed the Supreme Court. Well, it is also likely that retired Chief Justice Youh may be out soon as the Senate on Monday, July 14, began the confirmation hearing of the Chief Justice-designate, Associate Justice Yarmie Quiqui Gbeisay.
