Civil Law Court “A” Judge Golda Bonah Elliott, while serving as practicing lawyer, participated in the late Malia Hage children’s legal battle over properties rights. Despite her admittance, Golda refused to step aside from the case on grounds that the case that is before her is different from the previous case where she served as lawyer for ECO Bank Liberia Limited as the second respondent in the matter; even though the first case was the same parties and the same subject and are now the same issues in the second case that she is currently over.
But Nohad Hage Mensah, through her attorney in-fact Edith Hage Smith, filed a motion to the court requesting Judge Elliott to recuse herself from presiding over the trial and ordered the court to disband the jury.
Due to Judge Elliott’s role as a lawyer with Sherman & Sherman, and legal counsel for 2nd respondent, Ecobank Liberia Limited in 2019 in the case, Nohad’s motion said that the Judge who served as lawyer for ECOBank by then in her returns for the bank, argued and maintained returns, which bordered on the very disputed properties that are subject of the matte, adding that Nohad Hage Mensah lacked capacity/standing to maintain the suit/Bill of Information because the properties subject of the Supreme Court’s mandate (contained in its January 2014 ruling) referred to the properties owned by Oumou Sirleaf Hage and her children with Milard R. Hage, and according to Judge Elliott at the time, Nohad was not a child of Oumou; she was without the standing to file the Bill of Information.
According to Nahad’s, she is convicted that it is impossible to get a fair/impartial trial with Judge Elliott presiding over the matter given her views that collateralized properties in the possession of Ecobank were those of only Oumou Sirleaf and her children by Milard R. Hage.
Further to the motion, Nahad says that she is of the view that the Judge ought to have honorably disclosed her conflict in light of her previous role and recuse herself, rather than pretending to be neutral and assumed the role of a judge to decide the same matter despite her strong view that the properties in the possession of Ecobank belong to Oumou Hage and her children only.
“This matter before you to decide is whether or not the deeds presented Oumou and her witness ECOBANK are fraudulent as alleged by Movant Nohad Hage Mensah,” Nahad motions wonders. However, the 11-count motion claimed that the Judge as lawyer for ECOBANK at the time, had already relied on the deeds presented by ECOBANK as valid, real and binding when she used it to oppose Nohad’s title. She questioned: “How then can you decide this case fairly when you had already represented ECOBANK in a case involving the same deed, with the same parties?
Nahad through her lawyers said that Judge Elliott’s failure to disclose her conflict is indicative of ulterior motives to reinforce her view that the deeds being contested by Nahad Hage Mensah is fraudulent as presented by Oumou Sirleaf Hage and Ecobank, the Judge’s former client, which represents a real situation of conflict.
The motion said this renders Judge Elliott unfit to decide, as any decision emanating from her will carry with it a sense of impropriety, and maintained that to avoid conflict of interest in the matter, it is only proper for the Judge to recuse herself.
She maintains that the based on the Judge’s prior position, opinion, and current conduct as Presiding Judge, with which Movant finds prejudicial to her interest and rights, it’s in the interest of substantial justice that the Judge recuses herself.
But Judge Elliott in her refusal to step aside from the case said, nowhere in the pleadings filed on behalf of Ecobank, both in the returns brief, did Sherman and Sherman expressed any opinion on the deeds presented by Nahad Hage to the Bill of Information, and the fact is cleared and consistent throughout the pleading filed before the Supreme Court.
Judge Elliott ruled that the court is constrained to recall that at the commencement of the case, both lawyers, including specifically Nahad’s lawyer, Cllr. Mark Marvey, was called to a sidebar discussion with the Judge and its was agreed that the parties could admit clear copies of their deeds instead of submitting their original deeds to be lodged with the court. She said she found it intriguing that Nahad’s lawyer will choose to make a ruling of the Judge to which he excepted, and his exception was noted as a ground for the recusal of the Judge.
