Published: June 17, 2026
MONROVIA – The Senate’s Judiciary Committee has set December as the target for final legislative action on Liberia’s long-delayed war crimes and economic crimes courts, submitting a seven-month roadmap that threads the harmonization of competing bills through lawmakers’ upcoming constituency break.
Plenary endorsed the roadmap on Tuesday.
The committee laid out the plan in a communication to President Pro Tempore Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence presented to plenary on Tuesday, asking senators to approve a phased schedule that runs from late May through the middle of December. Signed by committee Chairman Sen. Augustine S. Chea of Sinoe County, the letter said the panel would review the various versions of both bills, consult stakeholders and produce harmonized drafts by mid-July.
Senators would then carry those harmonized versions into their districts as part of their constituency engagement agenda during the Constituency Break, which runs from July 17 to Oct. 9, according to the roadmap. On returning to Capitol Hill, the committee said it would conduct additional reviews, consultations and public hearings to produce further drafts for plenary’s consideration before the close of the Third Session of the 55th Legislature, which ends in December.
“The Judiciary Committee seeks Plenary’s approval of the attached roadmap,” the letter said.
The schedule answers a question that has trailed the court process for more than a year, namely how the Senate intends to reconcile the multiple, and in places conflicting, drafts now sitting before the committee. President Joseph Boakai submitted his administration’s bills for a War and Economic Crimes Court and a separate National Anti-Corruption Court in May, days after signing an executive order that extended the mandate of the Office of the War and Economic Crimes Court by one year. Those joined a draft submitted earlier by a coalition of civil society organizations and a competing pair of bills introduced by senators in late 2025 that would have excluded the prosecution of international crimes, an approach human rights advocates said would shield accused perpetrators.
When the presidential bills reached the floor on May 21, the Senate declined to fast-track them. Grand Kru County Sen. Albert T. Chie moved that the measures be processed in line with the Legislature’s April 2024 Joint Resolution and the relevant executive orders, and that the Judiciary Committee harmonize them with the other drafts already in its possession before reporting back. The roadmap presented Tuesday is the committee’s response to that mandate.
The accompanying document, dated June 9 and titled a roadmap for the Senate review and harmonization of the bills, lists three key reference materials anchoring the work: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, the Joint Resolution of the Legislature approved by the President and printed in handbills in April 2024, and Executive Orders 131 and 148.
It restates the twin mandates drawn from those instruments. The first calls for a “UN-backed Special War Crimes Court for Liberia (SWACCOL) to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between the period 1979 and 2003.” The second provides for an anti-corruption and economic crimes court “under domestic jurisprudence, for fast-track trial of those who will be investigated and subsequently indicted for acts of corruption and other economic crimes committed from 1979 to 2003; and such crimes committed from 2004 to present constituting constitutional rule, and going forward.”
The roadmap breaks the work into 11 phases over what it describes as a total projected time of seven months. After document collection and internal review, the committee plans to prepare a budget in consultation with the Ways, Means, Finance and Budget Committee and hold stakeholder consultations through the end of June. First drafts of the harmonized bills are slated for July 1 to 10, with briefing notes circulated to senators on July 15 and 16, ahead of the break.
Beyond the constituency engagements, the schedule provides for a single combined public hearing on the harmonized drafts on Oct. 19, consultations with stakeholders in the diaspora from Nov. 1 to 15 in coordination with the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and a final review by legal experts through the end of November. The committee set Dec. 11 to 15 for submission of the final report and copies of the bill to senators for plenary debate and action.
Alongside Chea, the letter was signed by Vice Chair Sen. Joseph K. Jallah and committee members Sen. J. Emmanuel Nuquay, Sen. Chie, Sen. Alex J. Tyler, Sen. Abraham Darius Dillon, Sen. James P. Biney and Sen. Simeon B. Taylor.
The timeline lands against persistent warnings that the window for action is narrowing. Senators and advocates have cautioned that political will could erode as the country moves toward the next election cycle, and the Office of the War and Economic Crimes Court has continued to press for the funding it says the courts will need to begin operating.
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