Sierra Leone

Signed this 25th day of January, 2002

Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, President

No. 15

2001

Short Title.

The Constitution of Sierra Leone (Amendment) Act, 2001

Being an Act to amend the Constitution of Sierra Leone, 1991.

Date of Commencement

[7th February, 2002]

Amendment of Constitution Act No. 6 of 1991.

The Constitution of Sierra Leone is amended—

(a) by the insertion immediately after section 38 thereof of the following:—

Election by district block representation system.

38A. (1) Where, under any law for the time being in force, a date for a general election of Members of Parliament has been appointed but constituencies have not been established in accordance with subsection (3) of section 38 for the purposes of such election, the President may, after consultation with the Electoral Commission, direct that such election shall be conducted on the basis of the existing districts in a manner to be known as the district block representation system instead of constituencies.

(2) In the district block representation system, the election shall be contested in each specified district by political parties for the block or number of seats in Parliament allocated to the district by or under an Act of Parliament and the political parties shall be allocated seats in Parliament by the Electoral Commission on the basis of their proportional share of the total district vote.

(3) Members of Parliament for the seats won by a political party in a district shall be determined by the Electoral Commission from a list of the candidates of that political party for the district submitted to the Electoral Commission before the date of the election and showing the order of preference of the candidates.

(4) The number of candidates on the list referred to in subsection (3) shall be not less than double the block or number of seats allocated to the district so as to enable vacancies in Parliament to be filled by the Electoral Commission from that list as and when such vacancies occur.

(b) in section 43,

i. by the deletion of the word "and" appearing at the end of paragraph (a) of the proviso thereto;

ii. by the substitution for the full stop at the end of paragraph (b) of the proviso thereto of a semicolon and the word "and", and

iii. by the insertion immediately after paragraph (b) of the proviso thereto of the following paragraph:—

(c) "Where any proceedings have been lawfully commenced or taken for the purposes of the election and assumption of office of a President, if in such proceedings, due to any exceptional circumstances, a date has been appointed independently of paragraphs (a) and (b) of section 43 for the holding of the elections, such date shall be taken to be included in any period required to enable the President to continue in office as if Parliament has granted an extension of the presidential term of office under section 49(2) for a period of four months commencing from any date on which the presidential term would have otherwise expired, but the foregoing shall be without prejudice to subsection (3) of section 42."

PASSED in Parliament this 21st day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand and one.

J.A. CARPENTER Clerk of Parliament