By Dyujay Jackson
As the issue of land dispute remains endless, some schiefs and elders have filed a complain to ECOWAS Court recently, the court is expected to adjourn the matter soon.
The ECOWAS Court of Justice on Tuesday, 22 March 2022 in Accra, Ghana, adjourned judgment to 31st May 2022 in a suit brought by chiefs alleging the violation of their right to their property following the alleged occupation of their ancestral homes by government officials.
The applicants alleged that their ancestral homes and land were occupied by government officials since the country’s civil war which they claimed constituted a violation of their right to property as enshrined in Article 14 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights by the Republic of Liberia.
The applicants said in their documents filed before the Court that they fled their homes because of the war which lasted several years and found on their return after the war that their properties had been occupied by government officials and that all efforts to recover the said properties were in vain as the occupants refused to relinquish the properties.
In the documents, the applicants said that in order to resolve the problem without bloodshed, they approached the government of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf which set up commissions to register all disputed land and compensate the illegal occupiers so that they can release the premises to the owners.
The applicants, who were represented by the Ganta Support Group, a non-governmental organization, said that despite the intervention of the government and the payment of compensation to some of the squatters, they refused to vacate the properties forcing the applicants to undertake a peaceful protest over the illegal occupation during which 75 Mandingo leaders were either brutalized or imprisoned.
The Ganta Support Group has among its aim to ensure the protection of human rights and respect for socio-economic rights, In one particular case, the second applicant, Mr. SEKOU A. SANOE, the administrator of the estate of the late Nyama Sanoe alleged that his brother…
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