By: M’PID D MENTALIST
Sierra Leone is known for its Netflix tendencies, and for over a month now, one episode that has dominated the airwaves is the passage of the Constitution of Sierra Leone (Amendment) Bill, 2025, by a simple majority rather than the two-thirds threshold that the supreme law of the land prescribes for altering itself. What began as a procedural ruling by the Speaker of Parliament has transformed into a full-blown national conversation about who, in the end, gets to decide what the Constitution means and whether that decision will be made honestly.
It could be recalled that on the 10th day of August 2026, the Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Segepoh Solomon Thomas, ruled that the Constitution of Sierra Leone (Amendment) Bill, 2025 could be passed under Section 91(1), which creates the platform for members present to vote by a simple majority rather than under Section 108(2)(b), which governs amendments to the Constitution itself.
Section 108(2)(b) is unambiguous and instructive that an individual or group of individuals cannot alter the Constitution, nor shall it be passed by Parliament unless, at its second and third readings, supported by the votes of not less than two-thirds of the Members of Parliament. With 149 seats in the House, that threshold is 100 affirmative votes. The government reportedly had 96; instead of lobbying Members of Parliament to secure the additional 10 votes through persuasion or compromise, the Speaker redefined the rules of the game by sticking with Section 91 and, as an afterthought, or some will say after the mission was accomplished, he suggested that his decision would be sent to the Supreme Court for an interpretation; for which such an authority is questionable, but it will be discussed at a later date.
The Speaker’s move prompted the opposition All People’s Congress to walk out of the chamber in protest. Many saw his act as a blatant bastardization of, and disregard for, the Constitution, while others hailed him as a hero.
After the bill passed without due process, the main opposition party, some of its members, and even individuals filed petitions with the Supreme Court for interpretation. In contrast, others have called on the President not to give his presidential assent and to invoke 122(1) of the Constitution.
As we waited in anticipation to see what was going to happen, sitting on a thin thread with our teeth glued in our mouths, forecasting the fate of our beloved country, the President, on 13 September 2026, via a notice from State House, exhibited one of the characteristics of a true leader by sending the file to the Supreme Court for interpretation.
A friend jokingly said maybe the president is afraid of treason because violating the Constitution under Section 108(8) could be tantamount to a treasonous act, or maybe it’s part of the grand plan to execute the process.
Whatever the President’s private calculation whether it is genuine institutional caution, an awareness that assenting to a bill passed in apparent violation of Section 108(2)(b) could expose him to a serious constitutional breach, or simply a tactical pause the effect is the same. The burden has shifted, fully and finally, to the judiciary. And it’s a fine place to say thank you so much, President Bio!
Under Section 124 of the 1991 Constitution, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, to the exclusion of every other court, over matters relating to the enforcement or interpretation of any provision of this Constitution, and that is not a ceremonial power. It is the mechanism by which a nation governed by a written constitution keeps faith with itself, the assurance that no institution, however popular or however impatient, gets to rewrite the rules of the game by simply declaring that the old rules no longer apply.
Sierra Leoneans have been here before, and the memory is not a comfortable one, just like in 2015 when former President Ernest Bai Koroma used the Judiciary to remove his former Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana from office without following the procedure set out in Sections 50 and 51 of the Constitution, the same procedure that Section 54(8) expressly extends to the removal of a Vice President. The matter went to the Supreme Court, which was asked to determine whether the President’s “supreme executive authority” under Section 40(1) could override that procedure. The Court’s ruling, upholding the removal, was widely seen not as a triumph of legal reasoning but as a capitulation to political convenience.
Ten years later, that precedent still hangs over the country like unexploded ordnance: a standing invitation for any president to remove a sitting Vice President on a bad morning, if their vision does not align, if they disagree over an issue of national concern, or whatever constitutional language seems convenient. Even the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report into the causes of Sierra Leone’s civil war was blunt about the judiciary’s share of responsibility for the conditions that produced that decade of suffering.
A former colleague of blessed memories will always say, “A judiciary that bends to power will also leave the masses in disarray; a one that finds reasons rather than principles does not merely lose a case; however, it corrodes the one thing that keeps citizens believing that grievances can be resolved by law rather than by force.”
This is why the stakes here go far beyond a single clause about electoral thresholds or committee procedure. The Supreme Court now has the opportunity and the obligation to give Sierra Leoneans a ruling that reads like law rather than like politics, one that engages honestly with the plain words of Section 108(2)(b), that does not strain the text to reach a predetermined outcome, and that is written with reasoning ordinary citizens can follow and trust.
A ruling that is technically correct but transparently result-driven will satisfy no one and will deepen the very cynicism it should be dispelling; one that is genuinely reasoned and puts the integrity of the constitutional order above the convenience of any political faction.
If and only if the above is achieved, it will begin to repair the long-standing distrust between citizens and the legal system, a trust that this nation’s history teaches us is not a luxury but a precondition for unity itself.
Now the judiciary has a rare chance to show that the Constitution is supreme and that party loyalty and political patronage are not the only lenses through which Sierra Leone’s highest court sees the law. With the burden shifted, Sierra Leone’s democracy now rests on the judiciary’s shoulders, and it must be upheld in the best interest of peace and tranquility. OVER TO YOU, SALONE THE JUDICIARY!
