Will the Supreme Court attend Boakai’s SONA presided over by Koon?

President Joseph Nyuma Boakai will deliver his second state of the nation address (SONA) on the grounds of the Capitol Building on 27 January.

It will be the same venue where Boakai swore “to preserve, protect and defend the constitution and laws of Liberia and faithfully executive the duties of the office of president” on 22 January 2024.

Boakai’s SONA is in keeping with article 58, which mandates the president, on the fourth working Monday in January of each year, to present the administration’s legislative program for the ensuing session, and shall once a year report to the Legislature on the state of the republic…”.

This year’s SONA has been impacted by a legislative impasse for “greed and power” where majority members are claiming to have removed Speaker Jonathan Fonati Koffa (Cllr.) of Grand Kru County (CDC, District 2) and elected Richard Nagbe Koon of Montserrado County (UP, District 11) as his successor.

The majority bloc had bizarrely claimed to have acquired more than the two-thirds (49 votes), having failed in several attempts beginning with what resembles a coup attempt when Koffa accompanied Boakai to Rome, Italy in October 2024.   

Koffa sought a Supreme Court intervention but a much-desired resolution put the state in a judicial pandemonium with all sides claiming victory and lawyers with several interpretations.  

This gave Cllr. Oswald Tweh the audacity to interpret the ruling, claiming to have acted in keeping with an executive law that empowers the justice minister and attorney-general to render legal opinions to the executive when he appeared on Okay FM’s Morning Rush program on 23 January.   

Long before Tweh’s interpretation, the executive, which had cleverly requested time in submitting the 2025 fiscal budget to Koffa, began doing business with Koon’s fashion when Internal Affairs Minister Francis Sakila Nyumalin, Transport Minister Sirleaf Tyler and Water & Sewer boss Mo Ali appeared to answer to allegations of bribery in relations to Koffa’s removal on 12 November 2024.

The Senate, which was seemingly split down the middle, ignored its

committee on judiciary, claims, petitions and human rights, which is chaired by Cllr. Augustine Chea of Sinoe County, when it honored Tweh’s ruling to work with Koon’s renegade fashion.

Kofa’s and minority members filed a petition for a declaratory judgment against Koon’s “speakership” before the Civil Law Court on 14 January when it appeared that their bill of information before the Supreme Court was being ignored.

Judge George Smith will decide whether to continue or discontinue the case on 27 January amid death and impeachment threats.

So will the Supreme Court, which has given a ruling described by legal and political pundits as “vague” attend the SONA, which will be presided over by Koon?

Representative Josiah Marvin Cole of Bong County (CDC, District 3) told a Spoon Talk program on 23 January he will plead for mercy to the majority bloc if the Supreme Court attend a SONA presided over by Koon in keeping with article 33.

Delivering an opinion on 6 December 2024, Chief Justice Sie-A-Nyene Youh reaffirmed the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review by explaining articles 33 and 47 but the court spectacularly failed to explicitly deal with the most contentious issue of the suspension of seven members, Koffa’s removal and that of chairmen appointed by him.   

Judicial spokesman Darryl Ambrose Nmah (Cllr.) was contacted via Messenger at 1:32PM on 26 January but didn’t respond, having read my inquiry at 4:52PM. 

It remains to be seen if the Youh bench will join the Johnnie N. Lewis (RIP) bench, which boycotted then President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s SONA at the Unity Conference Center (UCC) in Virginia on 29 January 2007.

Lewis and team declared then Speaker Edwin Melvin Snowe’s removal unconstitutional and ruled that UCC wasn’t a city for the majority bloc to have convened in keeping article 40 that says “….both houses shall always sit in the same city”. Koffa and his minority bloc, under the banner of Rule of Law Caucus and chaired by Representative Musa Hassan Bility of Nimba County (ANC, District 7) announced a boycott of the SONA on 21 January.