Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08MONROVIA477
2008-06-20 12:43:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Monrovia
Cable title:  

SUBJECT: LIBERIA'S PRS: GOVERANCE AND RULE OF LAW

Tags:  PGOV PREL ECON EAID LI 
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RR RUEHPA
DE RUEHMV #0477/01 1721243
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 201243Z JUN 08
FM AMEMBASSY MONROVIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0122
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHRL/AMEMBASSY BERLIN 0037
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 MONROVIA 000477 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/18/2033
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON EAID LI
SUBJECT: SUBJECT: LIBERIA'S PRS: GOVERANCE AND RULE OF LAW
PILLAR UNRULY AND UNGOVERNED

Classified By: Ambassador Booth for reasons 1.4 B and D.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 MONROVIA 000477

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/18/2033
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON EAID LI
SUBJECT: SUBJECT: LIBERIA'S PRS: GOVERANCE AND RULE OF LAW
PILLAR UNRULY AND UNGOVERNED

Classified By: Ambassador Booth for reasons 1.4 B and D.


1. (C) SUMMARY. Sustainable peace and poverty reduction in
Liberia require an unambiguous break from the poor governance
and disrespect for the rule of law that led to Liberia's
crippling civil war. The Governance and Rule of Law (GRL)
Pillar of the GOL's Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) is
charged with repairing the country's democratic process,
strengthening institutions of good governance, and
revitalizing public faith in and adherence to the rule of
law, all of which are vital to stability and economic growth.
Regrettably, poor attendance at and preparation for GRL
Pillar meetings as well as underlying hostility among
judicial sector leaders suggest the GOL may have a difficult
time meeting these crucial objectives. President Sirleaf has
already rebuked the Pillar for lagging behind the other
three. GRL Pillar deliverables underpin the success of the
entire PRS and stronger leadership over the Pillar will be
required during PRS implementation for the strategy to
succeed. More acutely, the failure of the GRL Pillar
deliverables, especially in achieving credible and effective
governance and rule of law, could seriously hamper UNMIL's
ability to continue its drawdown. END SUMMARY.

GRL PILLAR'S MANDATE VITAL TO OVERALL SUCCESS OF PRS


2. (U) The GRL Pillar's portfolio has the widest breadth of
all four PRS Pillars and is intricately linked to the success
of the other three. It includes promoting essential
democratic ideals such as citizen participation in the
governance process, decentralization, and local elections.
It hopes to strengthen public institutions by rationalizing
and right-sizing all government entities so they can serve
the Liberian public effectively and efficiently. It strives
to enhance the quality of the GOL civil service by making
sure that the right people have the incentives to work hard
in key positions and honor a proposed Code of Conduct for
Public Servants. The Pillar also expects to tackle
corruption head on by establishing an independent
Anti-Corruption Commission and empowering citizens to hold

their officials accountable through a Freedom of Information
Act. It endeavors to achieve holistic judicial reform by
ensuring that competent legal personnel handle cases with due
process as expeditiously and transparently as possible.
Finally, the GRL wishes to rectify past injustices by
promoting gender- and age-sensitive development programs.
These diverse objectives mean that success in the GRL Pillar
is a critical component of achieving the overall PRS goals of
a healthy environment for investment, local development of
civil society, and transparent economic growth.

THE GRL PILLAR'S FOUR STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES


3. (SBU) With such a varied portfolio, the GRL Pillar
subdivided its priority interventions into four strategic
objectives:

1) To increase and enhance citizen participation in and
ownership of government policy formulation and implementation.

2) To strengthen and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency
of public institutions and functionaries.

3) To strengthen and enhance the effectiveness and integrity
of legal and judicial institutions.

4) To expand access to justice, and enhance the protection
and promotion of human rights under the laws of Liberia.

OBJECTIVE ONE: CITIZEN PARTICIPATION AND OWNERSHIP OF
GOVERNMENT POLICY


4. (SBU) Since Liberia's Constitution was first written,
economic and political decision-making has be made from the
top down and imposed upon the indigenous people and other
non-elites. Local and traditional leaders, even officials
appointed from Monrovia to hinterland posts, have had little
say on the policies that affect them, and all funds are
controlled from Monrovia. This centralized structure has
allowed Monrovia to develop at the expense of populations in
the outlying counties. To achieve the objective of enhancing
citizen participation and ownership of government policy, the
Governance Commission (GC),the Ministry of Internal Affairs
(MIA),and the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs
(MPEA) intend to focus on developing and implementing a
national decentralization process.

CHALLENGES TO ACHIEVING OBJECTIVE ONE


5. (C) The GC has begun formulating its decentralization

MONROVIA 00000477 002 OF 005


policy but seems to be working independently from the
recently completed Census and the NEC, which just finished
its Boundary Harmonization Exercise to determine what
settlements ought to be called "cities," "villages," etc.
based upon objective criteria. Clearly, these three entities
need to come together regularly with the MIA and MPEA to
synchronize their findings and recommendations. The MIA
needs to make sure its district-based community development
programs start soon in order to create the maximum benefit
for needy citizens, but also remain open and flexible enough
in their structure to be truly owned and managed by the local
community as soon as decentralization is realized.
Unfortunately, the Ministry of Information, Culture, and
Tourism (MICAT) has not thought about how to institutionalize
records-keeping within all GOL entities that would be
necessary for the proposed Freedom of Information Act and
whistleblower protection system. It is also going to be an
uphill battle for MICAT to explain the importance of
measurable indicators and evaluation in governance to the
local population when the relatively more-educated GOL
officials have had such a hard time understanding the concept
themselves during the PRS process.

OBJECTIVE TWO: ENHANCING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PUBLIC
INSTITUTIONS AND FUNCTIONARIES


6. (SBU) Generally speaking, government institutions
throughout Liberia are overly large, unnecessarily
bureaucratic, and lack capacity. Employees who are unwilling
or incapable of adapting to new responsibilities within
revamped institutional structures need to be systematically
replaced by competent, pro-active new-hires. These new-hires
need leadership and management that is visionary and
dedicated to realizing the GOL's development aims. Civil
Service employees at all levels need to be adequately
compensated and have appropriate incentives to keep working
at the highest standards. "Ghost" workers that plague the
rolls of every government agency need to be eliminated and
effective, transparent controls need to be put in place at
all levels to fight corruption.


7. (U) The Civil Service Agency (CSA) has been working hard
on its Civil Service Reform Strategy and is coordinating with
donors through the Senior Executive Service and TOKTEN
programs to attract qualified Liberians in the Diaspora to
return home and take up critical management positions in
government. It also intends to look at pension reform and a
Redirected Government Workers program for those officials
that need to be phased out. The GC has written draft
legislation to establish an Anti-Corruption Commission and
plans to formulate the actual Commission as soon as the final
bill is passed.

CHALLENGES TO ACHIEVING OBJECTIVE TWO


8. (C) The enduring strength of the patronage system here
means there will be considerable resistance within certain
ministries as the GC and CSA are trying to holistically
restructure them. This is particularly true for eliminating
ranking officials with the best political connections. A CSA
effort to use biometric identification for all GOL employees
in order to guard against ghost workers will be hard to
institute in areas that have no access to electricity and can
still be thwarted by corrupt officials. The GC's draft
legislation establishing an Anti-Corruption Commission has
been tied up in the Legislature for months and it is not
clear in what form the bill will be passed, if it ever will,
and there is doubt about the effectiveness of such an
un-tested structure.

OBJECTIVE THREE: ENHANCE THE EFFECTIVENESS AND INTEGRITY OF
LEGAL AND JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS


9. (C) Liberia's legal and judicial institutions suffer from
a shortage of qualified, honest personnel at all levels,
especially in the rural areas. Many of the attorneys,
magistrates, and judges lack law degrees. Some are barely
functionally literate. The USG-funded Justice Sector Support
for Liberia will continue to train these officials, but it
will be years before there are enough sufficiently educated
legal cadres to manage the large case backlog effectively.
Corruption is rampant in the system, as those who can afford
to often bribe their way out of jail or bribe their cases
closed. Though the American Bar Association is funding
alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in some counties,
the practice is not wide spread, meaning that caseloads get
further weighted down by cases that could have been settled
out of court. Traditional systems were corrupted by the war.
The juvenile judicial system is extremely weak and juveniles
are often mixed with adult offenders in prisons throughout

MONROVIA 00000477 003 OF 005


the country due to lack of space. The public's widespread
lack of confidence in the legal and judicial system all
together mean that mobs form to resort to vigilante justice
against suspected criminals and trials by ordeal reportedly
still continue in isolated areas.


10. (SBU) The Judiciary just inaugurated the Judicial
Training Institute and efforts are underway to boost the
institutional capacity of the University of Liberia's Louis
Grimes Law School in order to effectively train present and
future legal and judicial personnel. Legal and Judicial
buildings and other infrastructure nationwide should be
upgraded to acceptable standards. To tackle the nation-wide
case backlog, both the Ministry and the Judiciary are
supposed to develop county-level case management systems so
that more work can be resolved at local levels. The MOJ
should draft legislation establishing a Law Commission that
would make recommendations on how to revise civil, criminal,
and commercial laws.

CHALLENGES TO ACHIEVING OBJECTIVE THREE


11. (C) For the GRL Pillar to make any improvements on legal
and judicial reform, it is critical that both the Ministry of
Justice (MOJ) and the Judiciary be a part of the process.
However, Minister of Justice Banks and Chief Justice Lewis
have a rocky personal relationship that blocks any realistic
developments the GRL Pillar can hope to achieve. President
Sirleaf gave the Chairmanship of the GRL Pillar to the
Ministry of Planning so that neither MOJ nor the Judiciary
could monopolize the body. The Chief Justice responded by
boycotting the Pillar entirely, arguing that the Judicial
Branch should never be subservient to any part of the
Executive Branch. Minister Banks delegated MOJ's
representation on the Pillar to his Deputy Minister for
Administration, who means well but is not qualified for the
responsibility. Regrettably, without either institution's
reglar participation, the Pillar has no cohesive strategy
for legal and judicial reform. Fighting corruption within
the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary is not even
mentioned in the Pillar's matrix though corruption is present
in both of their operations.

OBJECTIVE FOUR: EXPAND ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND ENHANCE HUMAN
RIGHTS UNDER LIBERIAN LAW


12. (C) Equal access to justice and the protection of human
rights has been a consistent problem throughout the Liberian
judicial system. Approximately eighty percent of the
incarcerated persons in Liberia are pre-trial detainees who
sometimes wait longer for their day in court than their
maximum sentence would have been if they had been found
guilty immediately. Those who can afford it can bribe to get
an earlier hearing or have their case closed entirely. The
less fortunate often do not even have access to a public
defender. Women, juveniles, the elderly, and the disabled
are particularly vulnerable inside the prison environment. A
lack of universal civics education means that citizens
nationwide are often unaware of their rights under the law
and do not realize they should protest when they are
violated.

CHALLENGES TO ACHIEVING OBJECTIVE FOUR


13. (C) As long as the MOJ and the Judiciary fail to work
cooperatively, tangible progress in expanding access to
justice and ensuring the protection of human rights is
questionable. Each institution is working individually to
lessen case backlogs, but the lack of coordination means
potential efficiencies are being lost. The Ministry of
Education should have also been included in the effort to
enhance public awareness of citizens' rights so they could
boost it in the primary school curriculum. We have heard of
no movement at the Legislature of the bill establishing a
Human Rights Commission responsible for monitoring government
compliance with human rights standards including within the
legal and judicial system.

GOL MEMBERS NOT COMMITTED PILLAR'S WORK


14. (C) Unfortunately, the GRL Pillar is not meeting its
objectives. Most of the GOL Pillar members, including the
Chair, rarely attend meetings and, if they do, are often late
and completely unprepared. On at least six occasions over
the last six months, donor members have shown up only to find
the GOL-side failed to meet quorum and the meeting had to be
cancelled. The GOL officials that do attend are low-level
and do not have the authority to make decisions on behalf of
their organizations. They also lack understanding of the
overall PRS process or the deadlines the Pillar must meet.

MONROVIA 00000477 004 OF 005


The unprofessional Secretariat fails to keep an accurate
email list of members, never distributes documents ahead of
time, and often neglects to draft a basic agenda or minutes.

PILLAR'S DISORGANIZATION MEANS COSTING EXERCISE NOT CREDIBLE


15. (C) The clashes between Chief Justice Lewis and Justice
Minister Banks and poor attendance from other GOL members
impede the GRL Pillar from making decisions and meeting its
deadlines. The GRL Pillar was the only pillar that failed to
turn in a final cost list of measurable improvement
indicators in time for the May 19-20 Grand Cape Mount Cabinet
Retreat. On the day the costing structures were due to the
President, the GRL Pillar met (not attended by either the MOJ
or the Judiciary) and started pulling numbers out of thin air
to be published on page 136 of the final PRS. Members could
not guess the costing for all possible line items especially
for those GOL entities that were not present. For example,
the Pillar asked for $62.9 million for "Rule of Law - Other"
as unallocated funds for the rule of law sector and promised
to hold a retreat including MOJ and the Judiciary to
brainstorm measurable indicators and finish the costing
exercise. President Sirleaf was reportedly angry with the
Pillar for failing to complete its assignment and has put
pressure on the Minister of Planning (who is moving on this
month to a position at the World Bank) to bring it back into
shape. The Minister, in turn, delegated the Chairmanship of
the GRL Pillar to his Deputy, Peter Ban. Ban has cracked
down on Pillar members to start preparing for the Berlin
conference, but a credible revised costing is not likely to
be ready in time.

COMMENT


16. (C) Under Deputy Minister of Planning Ban's working
leadership, the Pillar is just now beginning to get low-level
stakeholders to sit down at a table together. A credible
costing exercise and continued teamwork is still needed for
the first and second objectives, but the GOL players
concerned have pledged to work more closely together in the
future. Ban has not, however, been able to get either the
MOJ or the Judiciary to attend the Pillar meetings thus far,
which casts serious doubt on the Pillar's capability to
achieve its third and fourth objectives. Without sincere MOJ
and Judiciary cooperation, the proposed judicial/rule of
retreat seems unlikely to be productive (if it even takes
place at all).


17. (C) The GRL Pillar is lagging significantly behind the
other three Pillars and will be incapable of fully achieving
its objectives without enhanced leadership.
The GOL needs to reorganize the GRL Pillar in such a way that
both the MOJ and the Judiciary will take part. It also needs
to ensure better attendance and more accountability from all
GOL members. Only then will the Pillar be in a position to
make real improvements in public service, democracy, and the
rule of law, which are all fundamental to the success of the
whole PRS process. Success of the other pillars, especially
Economic Growth, rests on GRL reforms. If vigilante justice
continues as it has because average citizens do not believe
in the courts, UNMIL will not be able to meet its scheduled
drawn down targets.


18. (U) GOL MEMBERS OF THE GRL PILLAR

-Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs (Chair)
-Ministry of Foreign Affairs
-Ministry of Internal Affairs
-Ministry of Labor
-Ministry of Gender and Development
-Ministry of Youth and Sports
-The Judiciary
-House of Representatives
-Governance Commission
-Truth and Reconciliation Commission
-Civil Service Agency
-General Services Agency
-Environmental Protection Agency
-Liberia Refugee Repatriation Resettlement Commission
-National Commission on Disarmament Demobilization
Reintegration, and Rehabilitation
-Public Procurement Concessions Commission
-Forestry Development Authority


19. (U) DONOR MEMBERS OF THE GRL PILLAR

-UNMIL Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General
for Rule of Law (Co-Chair)
-U.S. Embassy
-UK Representative

MONROVIA 00000477 005 OF 005


-UNHCR
-UNDP
-UNICEF
-World Bank
-Carter Center
-American Bar Association
-International Rescue Committee

BOOTH