Who Is to Be Principle- Minded In the Senate

By Bill K. Jarkloh

As I read through the lines of the local dailies Tuesday morning, I saw a passage saying that the Senate needs a “Principled-minded leader” to be independent. This passage alluded to news of Sinoe County Senator Joseph’s bid for the office of the Senate President Protempore, which is speculated to be sponsored by the Chief Executive of Liberia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf with the sole purpose of the Executive to control the second session of the Senate. This passage seized my concentration the whole while considering the recent past of the Liberian legislature where bribery has been exposed in the name of lobby.

Finally I said to myself, No! No! NO!!!! I don’t believe that the President can control

a Senate overwhelmed with principled minded senators. Quite frankly, I disagree with the passage that the Senate needs “Principled-minded leader” to be independent. Independence does not only call for principle minded leadership, but principle-minded officials, in this case individual senators. This therefore draws us to tracing the role of the President Pro-tempore of the Senate and an answer to the question: Who is to be principle-minded in the Senate-The Pro-tempt of the senators themselves?

The Reason for Independence

Principle-mindedness is the source of legislative independence which builds legislative integrity within the context of adequately representing the interest of the people the lawmakers represent. It is therefore my view that the president pro tempore as presiding officer doesn’t have any than a tie vote. In other regimes, he designates other senators to preside in his absence, generally new members of the majority party. The Constitution provides for two officers to preside over the Senate. The Vice President is designated as the president of the Senate in keeping with the Constitution. The same Constitution under the principle of Check and Balance provides for three separate by coordinate branches of government, namely, the Legislature responsible to make laws and conduct oversight function, the Executive with enforcement powers and the Judiciary with law interpretation power. In Article III of the 1986 Constitution of Liberia, it is provided, that the form of government is Republican with these three separate coordinate branches. Consistent with the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances, no person holding office in one of these branches shall hold office in or exercise any of the powers assigned to either of the other two branches except as otherwise provided in this Constitution; and no person holding office in one of the said branches shall serve on any autonomous public agency. This provision requires an independent Legislature, in this case an independent senate.

But since the Constitution and the laws of Liberia are replica of those of the United States, I will like to use the American System to discuss the issue being debated. The President pro tempore is the second-highest-ranking official of the United States Senate. As it is the case in Liberia, the United States Constitution provides that the Vice President of the United States is the President of the Senate, although he is not a senator. Because of this, the Senate must choose a president pro tempore. Since 1890, the most senior senator in the majority party has generally been chosen to be president pro tempore; this tradition has been observed without interruption since 1949. This portion of the US practice is repeated in Liberia where Article 51 of the Constitutions also President who shall assist the President in the discharge of his functions. The Vice–President shall be elected on the same political ticket and shall serve the same term as the President. The Vice–President shall be President of the Senate and preside over its deliberations without the right to vote, except in the case of a tie vote

During the Vice President's absence, the president pro tempore is empowered to preside over Senate sessions. In practice in the US, neither the Vice President nor the President pro tempore usually presides; instead, the duty of presiding officer is rotated among junior senators of the majority party to give them experience in parliamentary procedure. (CNN, January 24, 2001). In fact it must be stated that the president pro tempore is third in the line of succession to the presidency, after the Vice President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. (Starr, 2001)

In Liberia, one needs not be told that the position of the Pro-tempore is as important as that of the United States though, no Senator has added value to it except for Charles Walker Brumskine who resigned from the Senate Pro-tempore, forcibly or voluntarily, for failing to dance to the tune of the drum of the Charles Taylor presidency. The rest of the Senate we see follow a pattern of bribe reception in the name of lobby to pass bogus laws (not to be discussed for now) and ill-fitted concession contracts for pecuniary reasons.

Parliamentary embarrassments

Before now, that the name of Senator Nagbe could be associated with the ongoing Senate Pro-tempt debate thing, bribe-taking by members of the Legislature including the Senate was the embarrassment associated with passage of concession agreements. A case in point was in 2008 September, when some Mitsubishi Pickups to the legislators including Senators. This “gift” to the Legislature came from the company through the Office of President Sirleaf to the Legislature, and was overwhelming accepted without any remorse or question. It was after the government had already procured the official vehicles for the use of Representatives. So a disciplined legislature would have asked: Why this valuable gift to the honorable people? This gift sparked controversy and was characterized by a debate in which most people argued that it was to serve a purpose. It was not too long, not even a fortnight when the President pushed to the Legislature the Mittal Steel legislation which was expeditiously.

The question of principle mindedness should not be about Senator Joseph Nagbe, whom I know is highly Principled-minded and would do well if given the chance. This issue is about societal gullibility that has buffeted administration, even though it does not cast aspersion on every official in the government – say in the Legislature, in the Executive or in the Judiciary. All it does is permeated the system with suspicion of corruption and malfeasance involving some government higher-ups, some so-called trusted associates of the president who fall for little or nothing, I must add the lack of evidence to directly link the president, even in the face of Capitol Hill Arcelor Mittal Steel donation 100 Mitsubishi vehicles.

Notwithstanding, it was embarrassingly evident that the lawmakers fell for flashy cars and betrayed their constituents to the behest of Arcelor Mittal or Mittal Steel operation that would ferry our iron ore out of the country without much benefit to the people. “Some of the legislators couldn't wait to test drive the vehicles in the parking lot of the Capitol Building while sporting broad smiles and glee at their latest acquisition. The official pronouncement of government is that there would be zero tolerance for corruption in the Sirleaf Administration, and took steps to fight corruption. The same National Legislature just passed a National Anti-Corruption Bill which was just signed into law, and the new anti- Corruption Commissioner staffs have not even found an office building in Monrovia yet to begin work, and the legislators have started accepting "gifts"? (Abalo, 2008) And the Honorable Legislators were challenged to issue a statement refusing such gifts and maintain their integrity, or donate the vehicles to other agencies of government that are in dire need of such, and this challenge fell on deaf ear. In similar manner of receiving bribes, the oil blocks of Liberia were sold and the Fire Stone Contract was passed by the through legislative action not dictated by the Speaker of the House of Representatives or President Pro-tempore of the Senate (I stand to be corrected).

Traditional Liberian Legislature/Senate

It is indeed flabbergasting for one to think that a Joseph Nagbe regime, if given a chance, will be puppet regime whereby President Sirleaf will control of the Senate. How could this be when it takes Senators to vote a decision before it becomes a standing legislative decision at the level of the Senate. The Senate had its problem of bribe-taking long since from the Nyenabo, Wotorson regimes and even beyond. This act of corruption of the senate is reminiscent to a ballad, folklore or a legend passed from one age to the other.

Traditionally, Liberian Legislatures over the ages were/are often rubber stamp in nature, succumbing to itself to executive powers. Because the Legislature, say the Senate, loses its oversight responsibility, executive officials would defy and/or insult lawmakers in chambers, saying they are only answerable to the President. In such a situation, the executive officials go free without reprimand – the facts are in history.

As it always be, the offenders of the Legislature go free not because some of the lawmakers are not principled minded, the go without reprimand because decisions to punish them will have to meet a two-third vote approbation of the legislature - the House of Representatives or the Senate, which obvious has to override the few astute and principle-minded lawmakers. The next time you see them is at a presidential lunch intended to appease them for executive misbehavior towards the honorable people, if a brown envelop is not pushed under the table; then the executive official is forgiven or the nominee already rejected is passed, not by demand of the Pro-tempore but by the majority vote of the Senate on the floor in chamber or in committee rooms.

Conclusion

But what I am saying here? I am simply disagreeing that a Nagbe Pro-tempore will be responsible for failure of the coming senate session if the Sinoe County Senator was preferred by his colleagues. Better still, it goes to say that the Senate Pro-Tempore is not to be blame for poor performance of a body which arrived at decision by at most a two-third majority. The Pro-tempore does not have a vote; expect there is a vote tie. He is more of a chairman, a liaison and administrator and not a dictator of decisions of the Senate. In parliamentary politics, that has never and will never be. No matter how much stooge a Pro-tempore would be, a principled Senate will always be principle-minded. No! I disagree and don’t see how this can happen. In the case of the Sinoe County Senator, a practicing prominent lawyer, he has been highly influential at the Senate; not only that, he is a man with impeccable character, an articulate and disciplined lawyer whose name have never been called in all of the senate malfeasance. In fact, he chairs the Committee on Judiciary, Claims and Petition over the years, a committee which has been deem credible.

Not say I am defending Senator Nagbe; however in as much as I am entitled to my opinion, it does not require a rocket scientist for a democratic-minded person to know that one man, who does not even have a regular vote except in the case of a tie will be reason for the President or the Executive to dominate the Senate. Even if he was corrupt, which I know he does not, he would not subjugate a lawmaker who has chosen to remain clear of corruption to improprieties. If he were to enticed a lawmaker to be corrupt and the legislator heeds, then that lawmaker is indeed corrupt and not because a Senate Pro-tempore entices him. So that argument that a Nagbe Pro-tempore would be reason for executive dominance of the Senate does not indeed hold water with a principle-minded legislature.

About the Author: The Author is a Liberian journalist, the editor of several Liberian daily and a graduate of the University of Liberia who is currently studying peace-building and conflict transformation at the Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation. He is a media trainer at the Liberia Media Center and once served the Executive Officer for Information at the Embassy of Ghana. He has external and internal experiences. He can be reached via email: billkjarkloh@gmail.com; miraclejarkloh@gmail.com and bill_ksolborjarkloh@yahoo.com or call mobile # +231-(0)-88-646-8244 or # +231-(0) – 77-634-7099