Rivers Crisis: Judicial Commission Of Inquiry Invites Warring Parties …Moves To Publish Memos

The Judicial Commission of Inquiry set up by the Rivers State Government to look into the crisis in the state assembly has invited all the parties involved to appear before it.
The invitation has also been extended to non-assembly members.
The Chairman of the commission, Justice Biobele Georgewill, said in Port Harcourt yesterday that the body would uphold justice and ensure that peace returned to the state through the evidence of every party that was involved in the crisis.
Georgewill also urged those without memoranda to appear before the commission to make presentations.
He assured all those without memoranda that the adviser to the commission would guide and direct them in their presentations.
The judge said that the commission was prepared to take all necessary steps to ensure that all parties in the crisis were given equal opportunity of fair hearing.
“Therefore, from Tuesday, there will be no adjournment, we want to sit daily and round up the proceedings of this commission.
“We are taking all the steps we can to ensure that everybody is given opportunity to be heard.
“The law requires us to do that and nothing more than that, so we plead and we still say any person affected by that crisis needs not be a member of the House of Assembly.
“Anybody at all that was affected by that crisis, come before us, even if you do not have a memo, come we have a counsel, who is also a commissioner in this commission and our duty is to ensure that every fact that needs to be placed before us is placed before us,“  Georgewill said.
He said that by getting to the root of the matter, lasting peace would be achieved in the state.
Meanwhile, the Judicial Commission of Inquiry set up to unravel the immediate and remote causes of the crisis that led to the fracas on the floor on the Rivers State House of Assembly on July 9 and 10, 2013, has directed that all memoranda so far received by the commission should be published in a local newspaper circulating within the state.
Chairman of the commission, Justice Biobele A. Georgewill, gave the directive during the sitting of the commission, yesterday, at the new High Court Complex in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
Justice Georgewill said that the commission resolved to publish the memoranda in the newspaper at great cost to ensure that all persons and organisations mentioned as having played any role in the crisis in the memoranda so far submitted were given fair hearing.
According to him, this is one of the twin pillars of the fundamental concept of fair hearing under the laws of the country.
Georgewill said that “the commission has taken this step to ensure due notice of the allegations made against some named persons and organisations through the publication in a newspaper”, adding that those whose names or organisation were mentioned in the memoranda would seize the opportunity to respond through the commission’s secretariat at the High Court 11 on or before 12noon, Tuesday, August 20, 2013.
He said that hearing of the evidence of those who have submitted memoranda to the commission would continue on a day-to-day basis until the public sittings are concluded, and re-affirmed the commission’s resolve to be fair to all the parties in the matter.
Georgewill said, “following the refusal by some persons and organisations mentioned in the memos so far submitted by some affected persons to the commission of inquiry, and forwarded to them by hand and through both NIPOST, EMS and Courier Services, which copies were returned to the Secretary of the Judicial Commission, the Judicial Commission, has directed the publication of the entire memos so far submitted to the Judicial Commission together with a hearing notice in a special edition of one of the local newspapers circulating within Rivers State, particularly the Port Harcourt metropolis.”
The commission later adjourned sitting to Tuesday, August 20, 2013.