Sierra Leone’s Supreme Court moved forward this week with hearings on a disputed bill that could reshape how the country elects its next president, after a five-member panel overruled a procedural objection from the main opposition party.

The panel, led by Chief Justice Komba Kamanda, sat in Freetown on Wednesday to consider three related cases challenging the Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2025, which Parliament says it passed on August 10. Joseph Fitzgerald Kamara, a former attorney-general now leading the All People’s Congress (APC) legal team, argued that the case could not proceed because the Attorney-General’s office had not filed its statement of case in all three matters before the defendants asked to merge them. The court disagreed, ruling that the defendants did not need to file statements in every case first, and adjourned proceedings to Thursday at 10 a.m. The Judiciary approved a live broadcast of the hearing, and ten media houses were accredited inside the courtroom. Two of the cases were identified as SC No. 8/2026, brought by three members of Parliament, and SC No. 9/2026, brought by the APC and two co-plaintiffs.

At the center of the dispute is a bill that would lower the threshold for winning the presidency outright, from 55 percent of valid votes to 50 percent plus one, change how parliamentary seats are allocated under proportional representation, set a 30 percent quota for women in political party nominations, and amend Section 76 to ease the current ban on dual citizens who voluntarily took another nationality from serving in Parliament. The changes would first apply at the 2028 election, when President Julius Maada Bio is constitutionally required to step down after two terms.

The vote that sent the bill to Parliament’s final stages has itself become part of the legal fight. Section 108 of the 1991 Constitution requires at least two-thirds of all 149 members of Parliament — roughly 100 votes — to approve such changes at the second and third readings. The ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party holds 81 of 135 elected seats, the APC holds 54, and 14 seats belong to Paramount Chiefs. Speaker Segepoh Solomon Thomas ruled on August 10 that a simple majority was sufficient at the clause-by-clause stage, prompting most APC lawmakers to walk out before the final vote, which the APC says received 96 votes rather than the required 100.

President Bio has withheld his signature and instead referred the matter to the Supreme Court on September 14 under Section 122, which allows the president to seek a judicial opinion on a constitutional question. A government statement on the referral said the issue “must be underpinned by constitutional clarity.”

Speaker Thomas, named as a defendant in one of the cases, did not attend Wednesday’s hearing. SLPP lawmaker Hindolo Moiwo Gevao told the panel the Speaker was unwell, a claim Parliament’s Public Relations Department called “completely unfounded,” saying the Speaker was on official duty in Conakry, Guinea, and that the state was “properly represented” at the hearing.

Until the Supreme Court rules and the president acts on its opinion, the existing constitutional rules, including the 55 percent presidential threshold, remain in force. It is not yet clear when the court will issue a final opinion or how the three cases now before it will ultimately be resolved.

Sources: The Rio Times, Awoko Newspaper, Sierra Eye Magazine