Melron Nicol-Wilson, Sierra Leone
Melron Nicol-Wilson’s long workdays begin at 8am. As many as 40 people are often waiting outside the small office of the Lawyers Centre for Legal Assistance (LAWCLA) in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown. They are refugees and war-displaced Sierra Leoneans, young victims of child abuse and the elderly, the disabled and the unemployed. Word of mouth brought them to Sierra Leone’s first legal aid center dedicated to protecting the rights of the poor. LAWCLA finds many more clients in the holding cells of Freetown’s overcrowded Central Prison..

The situation is so bad that remand prisoners...frequently change their pleas from ‘not guilty’ to ‘guilty’ to be removed from the remand home to the better areas of the prison.

Demand for legal representation among a poor and largely illiterate population is enormous. But needs are virtually everywhere in a country emerging from a brutal 10-year civil war and decades of misrule. Donor nations, international organizations, and the country’s civil society groups have focused legal efforts—and funding—on the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which are key to providing accountability for past abuses and respect for the rule of law during Sierra Leone’s transition from war to peace. LAWCLA is deeply concerned with transitional justice, but remains best known as one of the few places where the poor can turn for tangible legal help. “One cannot talk about human rights without the legal means to protect them,” said Nicol-Wilson.

A lifelong resident of Freetown, Nicol-Wilson committed himself to human rights issues during the military junta that ruled from 1992 to 1996 as the war raged. At Fourah Bay College in Freetown, he researched his senior thesis in 1995 on how detainees were largely denied their constitutional rights.

Soon after he graduated from Sierra Leone Law School in 1997, however, disgruntled soldiers seized power from the democratically elected government and brought in rebels to share power. As an educated Sierra Leonean with a reputation for investigating human rights abuses, Nicol-Wilson was a potential target of the new regime and fled to neighboring Guinea along with tens of thousands of other Sierra Leoneans. As a refugee, he pursued a master's degree in human rights law in South Africa.

A month after Nicol-Wilson returned home in December 1998 came the war's worst attack on Freetown—what residents call "January 6," shorthand for the day when the siege began. Houses were burned to the ground. Rapes were common. Rebels hacked off the limbs of over 100 civilians. Government troops and West African peacekeepers carried out summary executions of suspected rebels. "

After that, my colleagues and I were interested in creating a center to protect human rights through law," Nicol-Wilson said. In 2001, he quit his job as a lawyer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and established the nonprofit LAWCLA along with three other lawyers. With only a vague promise of funding from the United Nations, they set up a cramped office in a room lent to them by a law firm in Freetown's downtown, which was busy rebuilding even as charred and bullet-pocked facades of buildings were a reminder of "January 6."

“Each lawyer heads one of the four units, which broadly set out LAWCLA's priorities for research and advocacy—litigation, transitional justice, juvenile justice and advocacy, and gender research and advocacy. All of the lawyers provide legal aid.

One of their first clients was a security guard of the parastatal Sierra Leone Ports Authority who had been fired after refusing to take part in a theft orchestrated by his superiors in 1991. The client, who was unable to find work as a result of the dismissal, received $6,000 in compensation in an out-of-court settlement."Since that victory in April [2002] and the publicity it received in the media, we are now dealing with 25 unlawful dismissal cases," said Nicol-Wilson.”

Less sensational cases are nonetheless vital in indigent clients' lives. LAWCLA protected the rights of a 16-year-old petty trader whose estranged mother threatened to force her to undergo a female secret society initiation involving genital mutilation, street children who were arrested for breaking curfew, and other youth who were sent to the Central Prison at Pademba Road instead of a juvenile detention center. LAWCLA's paralegals regularly visit overcrowded holding cells like those in Kissy Mess Mess Police Station on Freetown's east side to find poor people who have been denied a fair trial. "During the state of emergency [which ended in March 2002], people were detained 10-15 months without trial," said Nicol-Wilson.”

“The public and other lawyers criticized LAWCLA for representing clients pro bono, charging it with “encouraging crime,” said Nicol-Wilson. But as LAWCLA successfully defended the rights of poor Sierra Leoneans, it gained recognition in the streets and local press. So many clients were coming to the first office, which a colleague’s law firm had provided free of charge, that LAWCLA was forced to move. “They thought we were undercutting their practice because we were providing services for free,” he said.

In February 2002, LAWCLA moved to the office on Old Railway Line, appropriately wedged between the justice ministry and Brookfield, which is one of Freetown’s many destitute neighborhoods. The lawyers, four paralegals, and four interns share two long desks and—in between Freetown’s frequent power shortages—a single computer. Initially, the lawyers themselves covered expenses.

The prison was built during colonial days to accommodate 220 inmates and now houses about 1,000 inmates.

“In 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was finalizing funding for 18 months, which will enable LAWCLA to establish posts outside of Freetown. In many towns, such as the former rebel stronghold Makeni, the courts have not functioned for years—and running water and electricity had halted even before the war. LAWCLA plans to hire paralegals to work in Bo, Kenema and Makeni, three of the four principal towns after Freetown.

LAWCLA was able to cover expenses-including back rent-at the Freetown office thanks to an emergency grant from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). Separately, OSIWA is funding a survey of all detainees and the conditions of all of Sierra Leone's prisons and police stations. "The conditions inside prisons in this country are appalling," Nicol-Wilson said. "We make frequent visits to Central Prison where prisoners die every day from malnutrition and lack of medical facilities. The prison was built during colonial days to accommodate 220 inmates and now houses about 1,000 inmates. The most congested part is the remand home, where the population of persons on trial and those awaiting trial should be presumed innocent. Yet they suffer more than those who have been found guilty. The situation is so bad that remand prisoners that we represent in court frequently change their pleas from 'not guilty' to 'guilty' to be removed from the remand home to the better areas of the prison." LAWCLA planned to produce a 30-minute documentary of prison conditions to accompany its final report on prison conditions.

Because of its work on the front lines in the struggle for rights, LAWCLA has a unique perspective on Sierra Leone's efforts to prevent future conflict by bringing to justice those responsible for the war, reconciling, and reforming the justice system and security forces. As head of the center's Transitional Justice Unit, Nicol-Wilson researches and writes on the Special Court and TRC. In September, LAWCLA was preparing recommendations on reparations for war victims. LAWCLA's greatest contribution to lasting peace in Sierra Leone will be its continued efforts to ensure that rights are afforded to all members of society. Indeed, for all the claims that diamonds fueled Sierra Leone's war, it was decades of misrule and injustice that made the country ripe for insurrection.