By Solomon Gabriel Brima and Agatha Konikay
The massive failure in the recently published bar examination results made the rounds on social media platforms, especially on Facebook and WhatsApp.
However, it is the instruction from the Chairman of Legal Education of the Law School, Justice Babatude Edwards, who doubles as the Chief Justice of the Judiciary of Sierra Leone, that all students listed as having references should re-sit their exams starting from the 2nd October 2019, whether they received any letter from the Law School’s administration instructing them not to attempt taking the exams or not.
It was posted in the Facebook group Sierra Leone Political Discussion Board on October 3rd, 2019 stated “The Acting Director of the Sierra Leone Law School, Ms. Pamela Davies has challenged the authority of the Chief Justice and Chairman of the Council of Legal Education by insisting on throwing students that have exhausted their three chances at the bar exams out of the examination hall”.
The Salone Fact-Checker stumbled upon a notice coming from the Council of Legal Education and signed by the Chief Justice instructing all students to take their reference examination whether they had exhausted the statutory three chances or not, pending a decision of the council on the matter.
The notice put out by the Chairman of the Council giving instructions to the students to retake the exams was followed by a post purported to have come from the Acting Director of the Law School stating in no uncertain language that students who have exhausted their three chances will not be allowed.
The Acting Director’s stance were supported by another post purportedly from senior lawyer and member of the council, Mr. Yada Williams, which states that the chairman acted alone even though his instructions were on the official letterhead of the council. In that article Mr. Williams made it clear that statutorily a student must sit to the bar exams not more than three times.
When the Salone Fact-Checker team contacted Ms. Pamela Davies, she said “The social media post that claimed I challenged the authority of the Chief Justice and Chairman of the Council of Legal Education by insisting on throwing students out of the examination hall even after the notice from the chairman is false”. She said all the students were allowed to take the exams as was instructed in the widely shared notice from the chairman.
Madam Davies denied making such utterances challenging the decision of the Chief Justice who is the Chairman of the Council of Legal Education for Sierra Leone Law School; and that the entire allegation made against her was all fake news.
“I have no reason to disbar students from rewriting reference examination when I consider them to be my own sons and daughters, “she said.
She maintained that she had a good relationship with all students and colleagues in the school. One of the affected students said all of them were allowed to rewrite their examination, irrespective of the fact that their three chances have been exhausted.