The Institute for Legal Research and Advocacy for Justice (ILRAJ) has raised serious constitutional and legal concerns over the Independent Investigation Committee established by President Julius Maada Bio to examine governance issues at the Sierra Leone Law School.

In a Legal Policy Brief issued on 15 April 2026, ILRAJ questioned the legal foundation of the committee, noting that no constitutional or statutory authority was cited for its establishment. The organisation further stated that the Commissions of Inquiry Act was not invoked and no constitutional instrument was gazetted.

ILRAJ argued that the Law School is governed by a Council chaired by the Chief Justice under the Council of Legal Education Act of 1989 (as amended in 2021), and is therefore not an executive agency subject to direct presidential oversight. It contended that the establishment of the committee raises concerns regarding the separation of powers under the 1991 Constitution.

The organisation also expressed concern over the suspension of an ongoing investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), warning that such action undermines the Commission’s statutory independence as provided for under Section 9 of the Anti-Corruption Act of 2008, which protects the ACC from external direction or control.

ILRAJ further noted that the chair of the presidential committee, Dr. Priscilla Schwartz, had previously been involved in interventions relating to the Law School in her former role as Attorney-General in 2019. It also stated that the Law School Council had already taken internal administrative actions prior to the establishment of the committee.

The Brief referenced the case of former Acting Director Pamela Davies, who was dismissed in 2022 and later vindicated by the High Court in June 2024, describing it as evidence of deeper governance challenges requiring institutional reform rather than ad hoc executive intervention.

ILRAJ made eleven recommendations, including reconstituting the committee under proper legal authority, allowing the Anti-Corruption Commission to resume its investigation, reviewing the Council of Legal Education Act, and introducing reforms to open up legal education through controlled liberalisation, drawing on models from Ghana and Kenya. It also called for statutory protections for Law School staff and constitutional entrenchment of the ACC.

In a statement, ILRAJ said: “The answer to institutional failure is not the substitution of one unchecked authority for another. The answer is the rule of law. An investigation with no legal basis, displacing an institution with a legal basis, and suspending an independent investigation that has a legal basis — this is not accountability; it is the concentration of power.”