By Kemo Cham
In the small conference room in the
offices of the civil society organization Campaign For Good Governance (CGG), a
group of journalists were recently discussing their experiences covering the
Sierra Leone judiciary. This is part of ongoing efforts to reform one of the
world’s most compromised justice systems.
That discussion is part of a project
called Access Sierra Leone, an independent initiative funded by the Partnership
for Democratic Change in the United States. A major aspect of it is the
‘Bridging the Gap Between the media and the judiciary.
Court reporting is not a fond thing
to do as a journalist in Sierra Leone, and the experiences as heard from the
narration of these journalists speak it all. They told stories about officials
demanding money to access copies of judgments, magistrates asking journalists
out of court in select hearings because they did not want them to hear certain
revelations.
These journalists’ experience is a
microcosm of how dysfunctional the whole justice system of the country has
become, to the effect that a party in a case would not even know where they
should attend hearing, for instance.
There is a huge backlog of cases in
the courts, cases as old as decades.
The story becomes even more
sorrowful when you look at the effect of this on the correctional system, which
has become so overcrowded that they are a cesspit of infections. The recently
renamed Sierra Leone Correctional Center in the west end of the capital
Freetown, for instance, was built to accommodate 324 inmates. Today it is
believed to holding over 1000.
The Access Sierra Leone project was
designed to open up the governance system to people to allow for proper
scrutiny. It is in two components – one targeting the civil society, and then
the media development component which seeks to empower the Fourth Estate to be
able to hold public officials accountable through unearthing of corruption and
other governance malpractices.
The media development component is
also in three folds: The Bridging The Gap; a Law School for Journalists; and a
Fellowship programme for journalists.
Bridging the Gap takes the form of
round table discussions between journalists and representatives from the
judicial sector – private practitioners and state prosecutors. The idea was to
have judges and magistrates take part in the discussions. But out of at least
three such sessions, none has showed up. The most senior official that has
appeared at the discussions is the Master and Registrar of the High Courts. To
some of the journalist, this is an illustration of how much seriousness, or the
lack of it, they attach to the issue.
But despite this, the project
implementers believe the programme is achieving its intended outcome.
Even though magistrates and judges
have not been attending, they have been sending in their representatives to the
discussions, said Mohamed Kuyateh, Project Manager of the Institute of War and
Peace Reporting (IWPR), which is implementing the project.
Kuyateh said the fact that the
discussions have been happening is progress in itself.
As part of the Bridging the Gap, the
project management team occasionally met with editors from various media
institutions, partly to gauge their opinion on the project and get their
inputs, but also to assess the impact of the project as manifested in their
newsrooms.
According to some of the editors,
the meetings were remarkable in not just letting them (journalists) express
their views about the judiciary, but also knowing more about what the judiciary
thinks about the media.
“We may not be there yet, but the
conversation has started, and that’s a major leap,” said Kuyateh.
The Law School for Journalists
component involves a mentoring phase. 15 journalists are enrolled after a
competitive selection process. They are taught on how to effectively report on
the justice system, crime prevention, as well as during courts proceedings.
This leg of the five-month long project is due to end this month.
The fellowship component, comprising
15 journalists, 12 of whom are already part of the Law School, provides
financial support for them to undertake long form investigative reporting. This
process is being run by an international journalism consultant who mentors the
reporters.
“In the first instance, for the law
school for journalists, journalists actually testified the fact that they have
actually gained knowledge from the training. Even the legal aspect of it has
encouraged them to further probe into investigative journalism. Most of them
had not embarked on proper investigative journalism because of the lack of
knowledge therein,” said Kuyateh.
And he added: “With the training we
have been having, they are now very much interested in probing into
investigative journalism.”
One of the fellows, Success Kamara,
is investigating the male correctional system in the country. His work has
taken him to the Freetown Correctional Center and the Mafaanta Prison in
Magburaka, Tontokolili District in the north of the country.
But like the rest of his colleague
fellows, Success faced hurdles while investigating his piece. And that
experience, he said, points to the need for serious discussion on the
media-judiciary relations.
Nonetheless, the experience of the
fellows, as can be deduced from their narrations, is proving rewarding for
their skills development in journalism. Ibrahim Joenal Sesay, who works for
Salone Times newspaper, had had the wrong idea about what investigative
journalism was until he joined the IWPR Law School.
“I thought first we were doing
investigative journalism but when we did the training, I realized we were
joking,” Sesay said at one of two sessions held in July.
Investigative journalism is an
expensive business, and in a country like Sierra Leone, where the media is
extremely poor, the focus is far less important to editors. Characterized by
small staff base, media houses rely on their reporters for news reports on a
daily basis.
© Politico 02/08/16
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