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| Justice El Hadji Malick Sow |
New African - December 2012: The Senegalese judge, Justice El Hadji Malick Sow, served as an alternate judge for Trial Chamber II of the Special Court of Sierra Leone that tried the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor. For the five years that the trial lasted, Justice Sow sat on the bench with three other ‘main’ judges who presided over the trial in rotation. As alternate judge, Justice Sow’s job was to step in and act as a ‘main’ judge whenever any of the three main judges was unable to sit. He says during the five years, he “worked harder than anybody else because I took it very seriously. For me it was a very important trial because I was the only judge from the West African sub-region, and as such, I couldn’t come back home, face my people, and tell them lies about what I didn’t see or cannot justify.”
Justice Sow’s conscientiousness and determination to apply the law as demanded by the Statutes of the Special Court and the international criminal justice system, made it unpopular with the other judges on the case, to the extent that they isolated him at the crucial “deliberations” stage of the trial where the guilt or innocence of the accused was decided by the judges.
