Mozambican Judge, Justice Machatine Honwana has subscribed to the judicial oath last Thursday 28th February, 2024 after her appointment by the UN Secretary-General. 15 judges have also appointed to serve in the residual court. Justice Honwana made a solemn declaration before RSCSL Vice President, Emmanuel Roberts and Justice Pierre Boutet that “Without fear or favour, affection or ill-will serve as a judge of the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone honestly, faithfully, impartially and conscientiously.”
Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, Stephen Mathias witnessed the swearing-in ceremony on behalf of the UN Secretary-General, and Sierra Leone’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mohamed Lamin Tarawally was also there on behalf of government of Sierra Leone.
The newly sworn justice Honwana takes pride in rich academic credentials and experience in national and international law and justice that enables her preside in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world.
Records seen by this press show that Justice Honwana received a degree in Law in 1997 from the Faculty of Law at the University of Lisbon, and earned a Master’s degree in Public and International Law at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
In 2021, she received a post-graduate degree in International Contract Law from Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique. She served as a judge of the Superior Court of Appeals from 2011 to 2014 and from 2020 to 2022.
From 2014 to 2020 she served as Legal Adviser to the President of the Supreme Court of Mozambique. Since 1998, she also served as a judge in various capacities in Civil and Labour Divisions of the First Instance Court and from 2001 to 2011 was Secretary-General of the Superior Council of the Judiciary as well as the management and disciplinary board of the Mozambican judiciary.
Justice Honwana was a member of the Review Committee of the Statute of Mozambican Judges, the legal framework of the Superior Council of the Judiciary and other legal instruments linked to the judiciary.
She has taught law at the Higher Institute of Sciences and Technology of Mozambique, and at the Centre of Judicial training in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital city. She co-authored a book titled: ‘Training and Support Hand Book for Judges on Wildlife Crime’ in 2022, and also wrote a number of articles and academic papers.
Since 2022, Justice Honwana has served as Legal Adviser at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Mozambique to the United Nations in New York. Such decent background in national and international law makes it fit for the Mozambican Judge to comfortably sit in international tribunals to dispense justice.
16 judges have taken oaths of office to deliver justice to the people of Sierra Leone, according to a press release by the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone (RSCSL). The oath-taking which took place at RSCSL facility at New England Ville in Freetown was presided over by the court’s Vice President, Justice Emmanuel Roberts who also took up office few days ago.
The RSCSL is responsible for the on-going legal obligations of the defunct Special Court for Sierra Leone with assistance to national prosecution authorities being one of the top priorities. The Special Court for Sierra Leone which concluded its mandate in December, 2013 brought to justice those responsible for serious human rights abuses during the country’s 11-year civil war.
10 out of the 16 judges were appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General, and 6 came from the government of Sierra Leone. The judges will receive no compensation for being on the roster, but paid on a pro rata basis if called upon to serve the court. Her appointment comes at a time the ICC (International Criminal Court) Chief Prosecutor, Karim Kahn is in Sierra Leone holding discussions with political authorities to see that rule of law and justice is upheld in Sierra Leone.
International justice is slowly reaching the doorsteps of the people of Sierra Leone as sequence of events indicates. Sleepless nights are being spent by some officials owing to fear of indictment and prosecution for genocide and crimes against humanity. Counsel Karim Kahn has met with Vice President, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, but the outcome of the discussion remains a cat in the bag. He also visited law students at Sierra Leone Law School lecturing them on the 1998 Rome Statute to which Sierra Leone is a signatory. The said statute established the ICC, one of the six organs of the UN.
The ICC is tasked with the responsibility of bringing to justice those who commit war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The prosecutor’s visit sparked waves of debates among the public with others saying it is a familiarisation tour. For others, it is an ordinary visit although such prosecutors hardly visit a country without a proper and sufficient reason.
However, argument about future investigations into alleged killings seems to have gained weight especially when the prosecutor recently met with the Sierra Leonean President during a UN summit enlisting his cooperation and support.
Kahn who seems passionate about bringing justice to Sierra Leone said the lives of the people of the Global South, Latin America and Africa mattered the same way as the lives of people anywhere in the world, and the prosecutions could not be confined at the Hague, the Dutch city that hosts the ICC. “The people of Freetown, Lungi and other parts upcountry in Sierra Leone wanted to see justice,” he said.
Sierra Leone, he said, was in a better position to support the court after she was elected one of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, UN’S highest organ. Sierra Leone was among five countries that took up seats in the UN’s top body, and was sure to assist in the maintenance of international justice.
The prosecutor’s meeting with the President came late last year after Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora staged a protest in the UK, US and Holland about killings and human rights abuses that took place in Sierra Leone between 2018 and 2023. The protest started in the UK at Downing Street, the official home of the former British Minister, and later reached UN headquarters in New York and the last was ICC where they tendered videos about gross human rights violations in Sierra Leone.
Recently, two Dutch judges visited Sierra Leone and held discussions with Chief Justice, Browne Marke, and their exact mission also remained unclear. Despite facts to the contrary, many say the judges’ trip to Sierra Leone is a fact-finding one especially coming from a country that hosts the world’s highest court. The ICC is the world’s highest judicial institution, but it respects sovereignty of states.
It comes in to prosecute only where a state has failed to bring perpetrators of atrocious crimes to justice most times out of a lack of political will or legal gaps. In a related development, United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, Beth Van Schaack also recently appealed to the Sierra Leone government to institute a justice mechanism to hold perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable. 10 years after the Special Court for Sierra Leone ended its mandate, Sierra Leone will also see another ad hoc international tribunal to bring human rights abusers to justice.