November 29, By Hassan Gbassay Koroma
As the call-over ceremony of the November Criminal Session commenced yesterday in the High Court of Sierra Leone, Justice John Bosco Allieu, has issued a bench warrant for thirty-nine (39) jurors, who were absent in court.
The 2016 November criminal session was opened with twenty-four (24) cases of various crimes, including robbery, wounding, sexual penetration, rape, fraudulent conversion, manslaughter and murder.
Justice Allieu disclosed that out of the 48 jurors that were supposed to be in court, only nine of them turned up and that such was very frustrating the dispensation of justice.
“Suppose we have a matter that we are to proceed with and all the jurors that are supposed to be in court are not even up to 12, don’t you think that it will be frustrating in the interest of justice?” he asked and ordered a bench warrant for the absentee jurors.
Meanwhile,on several occasions, judges have issued bench warrants for jurors and remanded them at the Male and Female Correctional Centres respectively for being absent in court to proceed with matters that they had been assigned to.
Also, several murder and other serious cases have been delay in the High Court due to the continuous absent of jurors in court.