On 31 July 2026, members of the Sierra Leone Bar Association arrived at the Bintumani Conference Centre in Aberdeen expecting to hold their long deferred Annual General Meeting and elect new leadership. Courts across the country had even been placed on recess to accommodate the gathering. Many members traveled in from their different regions to attend the event. Instead, they were met by police officers who barred entry. Some were told the restriction came from “orders from above.” Despite several enquiries as to the grounds of their action, members did not get any sound reply. The Public Relations Officer resigned on the spot in protest. After several hours of waiting, the police officers informed members that the AGM would not take place and they should “go back home”. The President had to later issue a statement indefinitely postponing the AGM. What should have been a routine exercise in professional self-governance ended in humiliation and division.
This was not an isolated failure. Two years earlier, in May 2024, the Association’s elections in Kenema had already left deep scars. A disputed voters’ list, contested procedures, police presence, and bitter accusations of irregularity produced a landslide result that many members refused to accept. A rival grouping, Lawyers Society, emerged. Trust within the profession fractured. The wounds from Kenema never fully healed; they simply waited for the next electoral cycle to reopen.
These two episodes represent two distinct wrongs. Neither excuses the other.
The first wrong lies inside the Bar Association itself. A professional body that exists to uphold the rule of law has repeatedly struggled to organise transparent and credible elections of its own. In 2024 the process in Kenema was so contested that significant numbers of lawyers rejected its legitimacy outright. In 2026 the High Court had to intervene, ordering the publication of a verified list of eligible members based strictly on bank payment slips submitted by a clear deadline, and the release of audited financial statements covering the preceding two years. These were not bureaucratic technicalities. They were the minimum requirements of accountability for an association registered under the Companies Act. When the institution charged with defending legal standards cannot reliably manage its own membership register, finances, and electoral process, its moral authority is diminished.
The second wrong is the external interference that prevented the Association from meeting at all. Whatever the shortcomings of the SLBA’s internal preparations, they did not justify police officers physically blocking paid-up members from a scheduled professional gathering. No court order was produced. The Government could have easily obtained one if it wanted to. It did not. The action was presented as a security or administrative decision, yet its effect was to suspend the constitutional business of an independent professional body. State power was used to decide, in real time, whether lawyers could assemble and choose their leaders. That is an intrusion no healthy democracy should tolerate.
Each wrong feeds the other. Opacity and unresolved disputes within the Association create openings for external actors to intervene. Those rejoicing about karma, must know that external intervention, in turn, deepens internal bitterness, fuels conspiracy theories, and further erodes the profession’s capacity to speak with one credible voice. The public already harbours limited trust in the justice system. When the Bar itself becomes a stage for contested elections and police barricades, that trust declines further.
Sierra Leone needs a strong, independent, and united Bar Association. It needs one that can scrutinise legislation, defend judicial independence, protect the rights of citizens, and hold power to account without the constant suspicion that its own house is disordered or politically captured. That will not be achieved by papering over the failures of 2024 or by treating the events of 31 July as acceptable crisis management. Two wrongs do not cancel each other out. They compound.
The path forward is clear, if difficult. Full and prompt compliance with the High Court’s orders on membership lists and financial transparency is essential. The Association must establish electoral rules and an independent oversight mechanism robust enough to prevent both internal factional capture and external interference. Members on all sides must accept that the health of the profession matters more than the outcome of any single contest. And the state must recognise that an independent Bar is not a threat to order but a necessary pillar of it.
The lawyers of Sierra Leone are right to insist on the rule of law. They will be more persuasive when they demonstrate that they can live by it themselves and when no one outside the profession is permitted to prevent them from doing so.