Judges of the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone ended their Plenary in Vienna on Friday with the election of Justice Jon Kamanda of Sierra Leone to a two-year term as President. He succeeds Justice Renate Winter of Austria, who served as President since December 2016.
Justice Kamanda served as a Judge of the Special Court’s Appeals Chamber from 2007 to 2013, and served three terms as President of the SCSL. He was appointed to the RSCSL in 2013, and served as Vice President of the RSCSL from 2014 to 2016. Prior to joining the Special Court, he had served as an Appeals Court Justice in the Sierra Leone judiciary.
The Judges also elected Justice Teresa Doherty as Vice President of the RSCSL, and Justice Pierre G. Boutet as Staff Appeal Judge.
During two days of meetings, the Judges discussed the outcomes of working groups on Ethics, Proceedings and Rules. The Plenary also saw the pre-launch of a compilation of the Appeals Chamber’s compilation of the Special Court’s jurisprudence, which will be published early next year.
Prior to the Plenary, RSCSL Judges and Principals took part in a colloquium on ‘Children Recruited and Exploited by Terrorist and Violent Extremist Groups’. RSCSL Judges and the Principal Defender made presentations drawing on the Special Court’s experience and jurisprudence in trying defendants on terrorism charges. The colloquium was organised by Justice Renate Winter together with the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and sponsored by the Council of Europe, Save the Children Sweden and Terre des Hommes.
