{"title":"The 30% Gender Quota Law in Sierra Leone: A Game Changer for Women’s Access to Parliament?","authors":"Victoria Melkisedeck Lihiru","doi":"10.1163/17087384-12340109","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The June 2023 elections in Sierra Leone occurred against the backdrop of amendments to the Public Elections Act (<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">pea</span>), the enactment of the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act (<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">gewe</span>), and a switch from the First Past the Post (<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">fptp</span>) electoral system to the Proportional Representation (<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">pr</span>) electoral system. For the first time in Sierra Leone’s history, law reforms, among other things, introduced a 30% gender quota rule for parliamentary and councillorship seats. After the 2023 elections, women won 41 out of the 135 elected parliamentary seats, increasing the percentage of women parliamentarians from 12.32% in the 2018 elections to 30.37%. Despite the increase, there have been concerns about the overall effectiveness of the gender quota rule in facilitating women’s access to parliamentary seats. The gender quota rule is set below 50%, is not accompanied by the candidates’ ranking order, does not apply in the election of 14 paramount chiefs, and operates within poor data desegregation of the candidates. This article highlights the required reforms to address the identified legal challenges to facilitate women’s equal access to representation in Sierra Leone’s Parliament.</p>","PeriodicalId":41565,"journal":{"name":"African Journal of Legal Studies","volume":"217 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"African Journal of Legal Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/17087384-12340109","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The June 2023 elections in Sierra Leone occurred against the backdrop of amendments to the Public Elections Act (pea), the enactment of the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act (gewe), and a switch from the First Past the Post (fptp) electoral system to the Proportional Representation (pr) electoral system. For the first time in Sierra Leone’s history, law reforms, among other things, introduced a 30% gender quota rule for parliamentary and councillorship seats. After the 2023 elections, women won 41 out of the 135 elected parliamentary seats, increasing the percentage of women parliamentarians from 12.32% in the 2018 elections to 30.37%. Despite the increase, there have been concerns about the overall effectiveness of the gender quota rule in facilitating women’s access to parliamentary seats. The gender quota rule is set below 50%, is not accompanied by the candidates’ ranking order, does not apply in the election of 14 paramount chiefs, and operates within poor data desegregation of the candidates. This article highlights the required reforms to address the identified legal challenges to facilitate women’s equal access to representation in Sierra Leone’s Parliament.
期刊介绍:
The African Journal of Legal Studies (AJLS) is a peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary academic journal focusing on human rights and rule of law issues in Africa as analyzed by lawyers, economists, political scientists and others drawn from throughout the continent and the world. The journal, which was established by the Africa Law Institute and is now co-published in collaboration with Brill | Nijhoff, aims to serve as the leading forum for the thoughtful and scholarly engagement of a broad range of complex issues at the intersection of law, public policy and social change in Africa. AJLS places emphasis on presenting a diversity of perspectives on fundamental, long-term, systemic problems of human rights and governance, as well as emerging issues, and possible solutions to them. Towards this end, AJLS encourages critical reflections that are based on empirical observations and experience as well as theoretical and multi-disciplinary approaches.