5. The courts of Sierra Leone

The hierarchy

From the bottom, as the lecture draws it: Local courts, magistrates' courts, the High Court, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court. Appeals do not always climb every rung. A constitutional case starts in the Supreme Court. A serious criminal trial starts in the High Court after a preliminary step below.

Section 120: The judicial power is vested in the Judiciary, headed by the Chief Justice. In its work the Judiciary is subject only to the Constitution and the law. The Superior Court of Judicature is named in the Constitution. Inferior and traditional courts are created by Parliament.

Local courts

The current Act: The lecture cites the Local Courts Act 1963 and notes that it was repealed in 2011. The statute in force is the Local Courts Act 2011 (No. 10 of 2011), amended in 2014. Use 2011 in an answer. Use 1963 only when the question is historical.

What they do: They sit in the provinces and apply customary law to persons subject to it. They are not the courts of the general law in Freetown. Lawyers do not have a right of audience in the local court in the way they do in the High Court. The lecture's list of work, estates of persons who lived under customary law, customary civil cases, small money claims, and minor criminal matters, is the shape of the jurisdiction. Money ceilings and the maximum sentence are fixed by the Act and change. Do not memorise a figure from a lecture unless you have checked the section.

What the lecture says they do not try: Breach of promise of marriage, libel and slander, false imprisonment, and the customary claim called woman damage. Treat that as the lecture's excluded list and confirm it in the Act. Woman damage is a real customary claim. Whether a local court may hear it is a statutory question, not a matter of the name alone.

Appeals: Under the 2011 Act an appeal from a local court goes to the District Appeal Court, a magistrate sitting with assessors on customary law, and from there to the Local Appeals Division of the High Court, then to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The lecture's phrase "Customary Division" is the same idea under an older name. Two assessors advise. The decision is the magistrate's or the judge's.

Repugnancy: Customary law is not applied where it conflicts with an Act or where its application would be contrary to equity, natural justice and good conscience. That is the lecture's limit. Read it with section 170, which makes customary law part of the law, and with the legal-system chapter.

Magistrates' courts

Courts Act 1965: Magistrates' courts are courts of first instance for summary offences and for civil claims within a monetary limit. There is a court for Freetown and for the districts. A magistrate is a lawyer. The lecture says that if no magistrate is available, two justices of the peace may sit, and it points to section 9 of the Courts Act 1965. Justices of the peace are lay people of standing. Confirm the section before you quote it as if from the Act itself.

The lecture's numbers: It gives the magistrates' civil limit as five million leones, a criminal limit of five years, and seven years if the accused consents. Those are lecture figures from before the leone was redenominated in 2022. They are not safe to repeat as the current limit. Write "within the civil and criminal limits in the Courts Act" unless you have the section in front of you.

Other work: A magistrates' court hears appeals from local courts in its appellate capacity, supervises that appeal path, and holds preliminary investigations. If there is a case to answer on an indictable charge, the accused is committed to the High Court. A person aggrieved by a magistrate's decision appeals to the High Court.

The High Court

Section 131: There is one High Court, with the Chief Justice, at least nine High Court judges, and other judges requested to sit. It sits in the places the Chief Justice directs. One judge sits, alone or with a jury. A jury is used in serious criminal trials, such as murder, not in ordinary civil cases.

Section 132: Jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, and such other jurisdiction as the law confers. Matters above the magistrates' limits, and indictable offences, are tried here. "Exclusive" is the wrong word for the whole criminal calendar, because magistrates try summary offences. It is the right idea for trial on indictment.

Section 134: Supervisory jurisdiction over inferior and traditional courts and other adjudicating authorities, including habeas corpus, certiorari, mandamus and prohibition.

Appeals: From the High Court to the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal

Section 128: The Chief Justice, at least seven Justices of Appeal, and other superior-court judges requested to sit. The court sits with three justices. A lecture that says five justices for a criminal appeal and three for a civil appeal does not match the constitutional account used on these notes. Use three, and cite section 128, unless a later amendment in front of you says otherwise.

Section 129: Appeals from judgments, decrees and orders of the High Court, and any other appellate jurisdiction given by law. The Court of Appeal follows its own previous decisions. Courts below follow it. A further appeal lies to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court

Section 121: The Chief Justice and at least four other Supreme Court justices, plus other superior-court judges requested to sit. The Chief Justice presides, or the most senior of the justices sitting.

Section 122: Final court of appeal. It may depart from its own previous decision when it appears right to do so. Every other court is bound by it on questions of law. The President may refer a petition on which he must give a final decision, for a judicial opinion.

Section 124: Original jurisdiction, to the exclusion of other courts, in the enforcement or interpretation of the Constitution, and in whether Parliament has acted beyond its powers.

Section 125: Supervisory jurisdiction over other courts and adjudicating authorities.

Section 127: A person may seek a declaration that an enactment, or something done under it, is inconsistent with the Constitution.

No further court inside Sierra Leone: There is no domestic appeal from the Supreme Court. A regional or international body is not a further Sierra Leone court. Mention it only if the question is about a treaty body, and do not invent a right of appeal that the treaty does not give.

Other tribunals in the lecture

Coroner's inquiry: The lecture describes a magistrate sitting with a jury, holding an inquiry into a death, with power to investigate but not to sentence, and with the result that a criminal charge may follow. Treat that as the lecture's account of the coroner's function. The depositions and the decision to charge belong to the criminal process that follows, not to a power to convict in the inquiry itself.

Court martial: The lecture places courts martial under military legislation, convened by a senior officer, trying persons subject to military law, with an appeal to the Court of Appeal. It cites sections 84 and 85 of what it calls the Republic of Sierra Leone Military Act. Confirm those sections in the current Armed Forces statute before you quote them. The constitutional notes on the armed forces are the place for the structure. Do not confuse a court martial with the High Court.