Africa-Press – Liberia. A legal luminary, Cllr. T. Negbalee Warner has rallied all lawyers – from the Liberian National Bar Association to the Supreme Court Bench to use their influence and expertise to ensure a violence-free election and sustain Liberia’s constitutional democracy.Cllr. Werner is former Dean of the University of Liberia’s Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law and senior partner of the Heritage Partners & Associates law firm.
Serving at the keynote speaker at the program marking Law Day celebration, Cllr. Werner named voter trucking, illegal campaign financing and the failure to uphold the “One man, One Vote” principle as vices that undermine Liberia’s constitutional democracy.
The event was organized by the Liberia National Bar Association (LNBA) under the theme, “Episodes of Electoral Violence and Prospects for Constitutional Democracy in Liberia.”
He said lawyers including members of the bar and the bench have a critical role to play in supporting all other stakeholders to address these vices in order to promote the integrity and legality of the upcoming elections.
This, he noted is a positive way of preventing electoral violence and enhancing constitutional democracy.
‘Voter Trucking is human trafficking’
Voter trucking, a new phenomenon in Liberian politics, is a practice where politicians lure eligible voters that are not resident to their constituents to register with the intent to vote for them later during elections. Observers say this practice, if not put to an end, could erode the essence of representative democracy in Liberia.
Cllr. Werner shares the same opinion and said it is no different from human trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery.
“Voters trucking is human trafficking. The sooner we start to see and treat trucking of voters for what it is … as an act of human trafficking and modern-day slavery- the sooner we will appreciate the need to deal with it urgently and holistically,” he said.
In addition to investigating and prosecuting it as criminal offense, Cllr. Werner said one way to combat voters trafficking is to make it less profitable by disabling the transporter from being able to know how the transported voters actually voted.
This, he said can be achieved by simply prohibiting voters from taking along with them phones or any electronic device that is likely to be used to take photo of completed ballots in the polling room.
He said: “Another well-established means to deal with voters trafficking is to implement the procedure the Liberian Constitution established in part to deal with the menace of this unlawful practice-i.e. establish appropriate, stringent procedures for change of constituency.”
He added the regulation of change of constituency is mandated by Article 80 (c) of the Liberian Constitution, which states that a “citizens shall have the right the right to change his voting constituency as may be prescribed by the Legislature.”
‘Illegal Campaign Financing’
Cllr. Werner said massive commercialization of the Liberian electoral process by uncontrollable and unaudited flows of huge sum of money to campaigns and candidates is also contributing to the trafficking of voters.
He said it is no secret that some candidates spent more than ten times their annual income, as disclosed and presumably taxed, adding that almost all political parties also spent far beyond their known means, and some political parties spent tens of millions of dollars with no indication of the sources of such funds.
He said the Constitution mandates the National Elections Commission (NEC) to examine and audit political parties and independent candidates to establish the source(s) of their income.
In addition, the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) also has the right to investigate unknown (and presumably illegally sourced) campaign funds received and or used by candidates.
“Unfortunately, there is hardly any evidence of investigation(s) that were ordered conducted and/or carried out into the campaign finances of candidates and political parties,” he said
He added: “I am also not aware, and have no evidence, of a public audit ever commissioned or conducted into the finances of a political party by the National Elections Commission pursuant to its constitutional mandate and right.”
He said illegal campaign financing undermines the integrity of electoral processes, and offends the principle of free and fair elections, adding “Where money is used to get an unfair advantage in any contest, it undermines fair competition.
This principle equally applies in nearly all sports where fair-play rules are designed and implemented by sports management bodies to combat what we in Liberia commonly called “money violence” or “cash violence”.
As Liberians get closer to the October 10 crucial elections, illegal campaign financing is another contentious issue confronting the electoral process. Recently, Presidential aspirant Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe called on the United States Government to sanction any Liberian government officials using taxpayers’ money to induce voters and engage in pre-campaigning. He spoke after pictures of House Speaker Bhofal Chambers ditching basket full of money to a group of people within his constituent surfaced on social media.
‘One man, One Vote’
Cllr. Werner said the principle of one person, one vote is the cornerstone of constitutional, representative democracy and should be applied to Liberia. He said this principle calls for every electoral district to have the same and equal population, something he said is not being practiced in Liberia.
He said several cases has been brought before the Supreme Court by Michael Jones in 2010 and the Liberty Party in 2011 and 2023 that sought the Court’s intervention to adhere to the portion of the Constitution of Liberia that calls for creation of electoral constituencies based on equal number, but the Supreme Court ruled against these petitioners.
“In any case, the point is that having electoral constituencies not based on equal number of voters as much as practicable is illegal, and unconstitutional, irrespective of who is at fault. A constitutional court, as is the Supreme Court, may well have been expected by others to have used one of the previous decided cases to see how a remedy could have been fashioned to address the evident and continuing illegality.”
Continuing, he said: “Constitutional democracy is one of justice and fairness; it gives power to the people; it upholds people’s rights to life, liberty and property; it makes mother Justicia proud. With hearts and hands, lawyers must defend this democratic space; we must put our education and expertise at the service of the country. We must not bend the law and think constitutional democracy will blossom seamlessly.”
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