Mohammed Kroma Esq: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 07 June 2026:
The removal of Auditor-General Lara Taylor-Pearce on 20 December 2024 was not the conclusion of a lawful accountability process. It was the last act of a three-year constitutional bypass.
While the Executive initiated the assault and Parliament sanitized it, the failure of the Rule of Law rests squarely at the door of the Judiciary.
As President of the Sierra Leone Bar Association (SLBA), I should have said then what is undeniable now: the Judiciary did not fail by accident; it failed by design.
The process was unconstitutional at its inception. On 11 November 2021, the President suspended Madam Taylor-Pearce before a tribunal was engaged.
Under Section 137(6) of our Constitution, referral to a tribunal is the non-negotiable condition precedent for any suspension.
By inverting this sequence, the Executive acted ultra vires. Had the Supreme Court acted with the urgency the Constitution demands, this illegal sequence would have been halted in December 2021.
Instead, the Judiciary used jurisdictional technicalities to avoid ruling on the substantive breach for a full year, effectively allowing an illegal administrative process to override the literal text of the law.
When the sentinel of the Constitution sleeps, the Executive is free to roam. By dismissing Madam Taylor-Pearce initial petition in November 2022 and refusing to stay the Tribunal while core constitutional questions remained unresolved, the Supreme Court ran out the clock.
This was a profound judicial abdication. It signalled to the state that it could redefine auditing standards—specifically the mandatory verification under ISA 505—as misconduct without fear of judicial intervention.
By the time the matter reached the mathematical theatre of a 100-vote Parliament, the Judiciary had already surrendered the field.
If I had been SLBA President, my focus would have been on the Judiciary silence.
The Bar primary duty was to stand on the steps of the Supreme Court and demand that the law be applied as written.
We should have challenged the jurisdiction of a Tribunal birthed from an illegal suspension. The Bar failure was its refusal to hold the bench to account for its own tactical deference.
Lara Taylor-Pearce did not fall because she broke the law. She fell because those sworn to protect the law chose to look away.
History will record that in 2024, the Rule of Law in Sierra Leone was not murdered by the Executive; it was a consequence of judicial abdication.
History will exonerate Madam Taylor-Pearce as a true daughter of the Republic. ‘Time will tell. Time go fit clock’.
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