Release of lawyers "not eminent"

The release of two lawyers of the Liberian National Bar Association (LBA) "is not eminent if they fail to retract their statement in spite of the payment of their fines", a statement from Liberia's Information Ministry quoting the Majority Whip in Liberia's House of Representatives, Sando Johnson, said on Tuesday. According to Johnson, their release was dependent on the retraction of a recent statement in which they termed the detention of LBA's President, Emmanuel Wureh, by the House "unconstitutional" and also for inciting other lawyers to boycott all court proceedings "which rendered the common man vulnerable to complex abuses". Wureh was detained late September but was released the first week of October after a week-long boycott of courts by lawyers. He had been detained for "contempt". Johnson told journalists in the capital Monrovia that the two, Marcus Jones and Ishmael Campbell, have been proved guilty of contempt because they have paid the fine imposed on them by the House but have failed to comply with the second part of the demand that they retract their statement or "they will remain in incarceration till March next year". He also called on Liberia's Justice Minister, Eddington Varmah, to issue Writ of Injunction on lawyers who fail to attend court proceedings, arguing that the two detained lawyers "have consented to their wrong doing and paid their fines". As from Friday, lawyers started a second round of boycott of courts to protest the detention of the two lawyers. The Pan-African News Agency (PANA) quoted a statement from the lawyers as saying that all of them were to "boycott all courts, administrative fora and agencies of government pending the release of the two who were jailed on Wednesday". A consortium of Liberian human rights groups also denounced the move by the House saying it had detained the lawyers "without the due process of law". The National Human Rights Centre (NHRC), which gathers nine human rights organisations, accused the House of "flagrant violation of the Liberian constitution by not availing to the two lawyers the due process of law".