Prosecutor v. Morris Kallon et al.

During Sierra Leone’s violent 10-year civil war, the rebels and the government-backed forces both committed significant atrocities and human-rights violations. Ultimately, the government regained control of the country. The government entered into an agreement with the United Nations to create an independent, international tribunal called the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) to prosecute the individuals on both sides of the conflict who had committed the most serious war crimes. The agreement creating the SCSL stated that it: (1) was outside Sierra Leone’s judiciary; (2) had concurrent jurisdiction with the Sierra Leone courts over war crimes and, if a conflict arose, had primacy over those courts; (3) could make its own agreements with countries as necessary to carry out its functions; and (4) was not anchored to United Nations law, the law of Sierra Leone, or any particular legal system. The SCSL’s creation statute also provided fair-trial guarantees, such as impartial judges and presumption of a defendant’s innocence until proven guilty, and provided that the SCSL’s appeals chamber had authority to resolve any questions about the SCSL’s jurisdiction. Charges were brought in the SCSL against two former rebel leaders and a current government minister of Sierra Leone who had led government-backed forces during the civil war (defendants). The three men filed motions challenging the constitutionality of SCSL’s existence and jurisdiction. Specifically, the men argued that (1) the SCSL’s treaty-based creation had violated Sierra Leone’s constitution, which required a referendum to make any change to the country’s judicial hierarchy, and (2) the SCSL’s self-declared primacy over Sierra Leone’s courts also violated Sierra Leone’s constitution, which stated that Sierra Leone’s supreme court had final judicial authority in Sierra Leone and supervisory authority over all other courts in Sierra Leone. The SCSL’s appeals chamber evaluated the motions.