In Mali, former Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maïga and former Minister of Economy Bouaré Fily Sissoko were arrested on Thursday in the case of the presidential plane bought during IBK’s presidency. But the handling of the case by the Supreme Court, instead of the Supreme Court, the only one that is theoretically competent to judge the ministers, shares.
Considered as non-functional by the Supreme Court prosecutor, it is not the Supreme Court that is responsible for the case, but the Supreme Court. An “instrumentalization of justice”, according to Sheik Mohammed Chérif Koné, president of AMPP, the Malian Association of Prosecutors and Prosecutors.
His position as the first public prosecutor in the Supreme Court indictment does not prevent him from criticizing this election: “Members of the Supreme Court are not even aware of what is happening here. We do not understand the procedure at all, because we were not associated at all and it is on social networks and on the street that we get information about this file. It’s very disturbing. The procedure really gives the impression of an instrumentalized justice, we are in a state governed by the rule of law. The rules of procedure are of public order ”.
According to him, the Supreme Court can not replace the High Court of Justice, “the only one that has the power” to adjudicate cases involving ministers.
To justify this choice, the Supreme Court prosecutor had presented the transition period going on in Mali. “It is not because the National Assembly has been dissolved that the High Court of Justice is not there. It is prescribed in the constitution, the lawyer continues. The Association of Prosecutors fights for impunity, especially the highest personalities who must be the first to be an example of justice and common sense. But we want the rules of procedure to be respected, the citizen to be respected, the rights of the defense to be respected ”.
“No matter how you stop a thief, you have to stop him.” Others, on the contrary, welcome what they see as progress towards impunity. Reports from the Court of Auditors and the Auditor General, but also from the IMF, had identified over-invoicing and many discrepancies in the purchase of the aircraft under the mandate of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. These cases were closed in 2018 and then reopened last year and the indictment against the two former ministers is good for Clément Dembélé, Chair of the Mali Corruption and Unemployment Platform (PCC), who is pleased that see the investigation proceed.
“The charges against Soumeylou Boubeye Maïga and Bouaré are the starting point for a fight that is about to begin. Boubeye is not the only one, Madame Fily is not the only one, there are others. There are senior officers in this business, advisers “, he explains and hopes that justice” goes to the end “. He also believes that the former president IBK should be included in the procedure “because we can not carry out all this activity without him”.
On the issue of the instrumentalisation of justice brought by judges, Clément Dembelé believes that “whatever the way to stop a thief, he must be stopped”. The goal is to be able to stop for a moment someone who does not have mercy, or fear or morality, from plundering public property. Today, if the Supreme Court stops people, let’s continue the process. Regardless of the formula, let’s go and we’re coming to an end, ”he concludes.
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