Courts in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, were closed on Wednesday and Thursday as lawyers staged a strike to protest the detention of their colleague, J. Emmanuel Wureh, news organisations reported. The lower house of parliament reacted to the boycott by reversing a decision to release the lawyer, PANA said.
The lower house had ordered Wurie detained for statements he had made. It announced on Tuesday that it would set him free on Thursday based on appeals from several personalities, including President Charles Taylor. However, after a plenary session on Thursday, the house announced it would keep Wureh in jail "until the lawyers' associations withdrew their boycott". Wureh, a former member of the Supreme Court, is also a law professor.
The house also summoned the Liberia National Bar Association's vice president, Marcus Jones, and the chairman of the Monrovia bar association, Ishmael Campbell, to prove why they should not be held in contempt, PANA said. The two reportedly signed and published statements of their respective bodies calling for the boycott and describing the lower house's action as "unconstitutional and excessive".
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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