𝐒𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐫 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 – 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 𝐌𝐬. 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐄𝐠𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚’𝐬 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦

The Sierra Leone Bar Association (SLBA) has at no point since the 1970s been free from serious criticism and strictures. The 2004 report of the Truth and Reconciliation noted that members of the bar, in colluding with various governments since Siaka Stevens’ depraved one-party state, “contributed a great deal towards the massive abuse of human rights that took place before and during the war.” Still, at critical moments, particularly during the struggle to return the country to liberal and multiparty democracy, the association played an overwhelmingly positive, and critical, role.

The return of competitive politics with the election of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, a highly civilized lawyer himself, gave a profound new boost to the SLBA and the legal profession. Mr. Kabbah, and still more his highly competent and effective Attorney General and later Vice President Solomon Berewa, invested a touch of real glamour and purposiveness to the legal profession. In consequence, many young people enrolled for legal training – and now dominate the profession. But it was always clear that politics would, once again, rudely intrude – and there were several instances of regime machinations and corruptions in the running of the SLBA when President Ernest Bai Koroma was in power. Even in this depraved context, however, the SLBA’s sordid theatricality in Kenema in 2024 occasioned prodigies of excess and incompetence all its own. Its much-disputed outcome of an election led to enough fissures, perhaps for the first time in its around 120 years history, to the formation of a breakaway faction, the so-called Lawyers’ Society. The Association has since lost its lustre and perhaps even relevance, attracting media and other attention for all the wrong reasons. This is an intolerable state, which must be reversed for the good of the country. It is not the sort of legacy that should be associated with the government.

The legal profession is a key guarantor, and enabler, of the rule of law – fundamental to justice, human rights and security of all citizens alike. This imperative stands over and above other considerations. It must be set right.

In announcing her candidacy for President of the SLBA, Ms. Martina Baindu Egbenda offers real hope for the reunification and renewal of the Association. I have met Ms. Egbenda a few times, mostly when she comes for meetings at the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva as a representative of the government. She is the very able Administrator and Registrar General of Sierra Leone, managing important issues like copyright and patents. I have always found her to be presentable, articulate and highly professional in her engagements. Affable and even urbane, she happily combines great sociability with a deep intellect. I am in no doubt that if elected, she will quite easily unite the SLBA and restore its sense of purpose as a professional and effective association.

Her platform – succinct, shorn of demagoguery and divisiveness – is anchored on three, linked aspirations: together we Elevate the Bar; together we Protect Justice; and together we Build Sierra Leone. What’s not there to like? Her background – as a private legal practitioner, administrator and constitutional lawyer for around 14 years – offers real hope. In electing her, the SLBA would be giving itself a real lifeline.

May she prevail.

The author is Sierra Leone’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative in Geneva.