Rights of Persons On Trial
Many defendants were kept in detention for long periods, averaging three to five years. The courts are generally independent, but government influence and corruption are occasionally a problem. Although the law requires that indigent defendants be provided with legal representation, the great majority of defendants have no lawyer, owing to a critical shortage of public defenders. Many cases are prosecuted by police officers with little or no legal training. Sentences vary widely from one district to another, with crimes like sacrilege and burglary being punished with several decades in prison; bribery can make the difference between a short and long sentence.
In rural areas, tribal courts have the authority to try defendants, although they have no set law code, and there is frequent abuse of judicial power, with village chiefs, in their role as judges, often handing down excessively severe sentences, discriminating against women, and accepting bribes. Training programs run by the government and NGOs, however, have improved the situation. The 2011 report by the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone noted that “most people resort to the local and traditional courts to resolve their disputes and differences in areas where the formal court system are not accessible. These courts are less expensive, easily accessible and culturally acceptable as compared to the formal court system. However, the local courts decisions were often not consistent with human rights standards especially with regards the protection of women's rights.”
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Sierra Leone
Famous quotes containing the words rights of, rights, persons and/or trial:
“Rights! There are no rights whatever without corresponding duties. Look at the history of the growth of our constitution, and you will see that our ancestors never upon any occasion stated, as a ground for claiming any of their privileges, an abstract right inherent in themselves; you will nowhere in our parliamentary records find the miserable sophism of the Rights of Man.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Unfortunately, I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.”
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)
“A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavour to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Between us two it’s not a star at all.
It’s a new patented electric light,
Put up on trial by that Jerseyite
So much is being now expected of....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)