{"id":378031,"date":"2017-11-27T15:20:59","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T15:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=378031"},"modified":"2017-11-27T15:20:59","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T15:20:59","slug":"ecowas-court-declares-2015-removal-of-sierra-leone-veep-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=378031","title":{"rendered":"ECOWAS court declares 2015 removal of Sierra Leone Veep illegal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The ECOWAS Court of Justice has declared as illegal the 2015 removal of Sierra Leone&#8217;s Vice President, Samuel Sam-Sumana from office, by the country&#8217;s President, Ernest Koroma.<\/p>\n<p>Today, Monday, November 27, the court ruled that Vice President Sam-Sumana&#8217;s fundamental human rights to fair hearing and to participate in politics, as guaranteed by the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights were violated.<\/p>\n<p>The Court dismissed, in from the start, the argument of Sierra Leone to the effect that the ECOWAS Court had no jurisdiction to hear the case.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_378057\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-378057\" style=\"width: 660px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-378057\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/President-Ernest-Bai-Koroma-L-had-a-frosty-relationship-with-his-sacked-deputy-Samuel-Sam-Sumana-R.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/President-Ernest-Bai-Koroma-L-had-a-frosty-relationship-with-his-sacked-deputy-Samuel-Sam-Sumana-R.jpg 660w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/President-Ernest-Bai-Koroma-L-had-a-frosty-relationship-with-his-sacked-deputy-Samuel-Sam-Sumana-R-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-378057\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Ernest Bai Koroma (L) with Samuel Sam-Sumana (R)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The ECOWAS Court held that it had jurisdiction to hear the Application by Mr. Sam-Sumana in defense of his Fundamental Human Rights.<\/p>\n<p>The court also declared that the removal of Mr. Sam-Sumana from office was wrong, as it violated his right to appeal the decision, and therefore his right to Natural Justice and to a fair hearing, and further occasioned a violation of his right to participate in politics.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Sam-Sumana is also to receive all his salaries and emoluments from the day of his removal to date, as well as the cost of his legal fees.<\/p>\n<p>Some other reliefs sought by Mr. Sam-Sumana were however not granted by the court, because they have either elapsed or hinge on the domestic laws of Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Sam-Sumana was represented by two law firms from Nigeria and Ghana, Falana &amp; Falana and Atuguba &amp; Associates, led by Femi Falana and Dr. Raymond Atuguba.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">In 2015, the Sierra Leone Presidency said Mr. Sam-Sumana was sacked for seeking political asylum in a foreign embassy.<\/p>\n<p>President Koroma was said to have\u00a0dismissed him because he had &#8220;abandoned&#8221; his duties.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Sam-Sumana said he had sought asylum in the US because his life was in danger.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to this, the ruling party had expelled Mr. Sam-Sumana after accusing him of trying to form a breakaway party<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ECOWAS Court of Justice has declared as illegal the 2015 removal of Sierra Leone&#8217;s Vice President, Samuel Sam-Sumana from office, by the country&#8217;s President, Ernest Koroma. Today, Monday, November 27, the court ruled that Vice President Sam-Sumana&#8217;s fundamental human rights to fair hearing and to participate in politics, as guaranteed by the African Charter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":378054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,11],"tags":[14983,3,14982,5142],"class_list":["post-378031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-top-stories","tag-ernest-koroma","tag-ghana-news","tag-sam-sumana","tag-sierra-leone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=378031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/378054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=378031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=378031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=378031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}