The tone contrasts sharply with the duty of description that judges generally observe. Now coordinator of the February 20 Appeal organizations, an opposition platform started by Issa Kaou N'Djim, Cheick Mohamed Chérif Koné continues with scathing statements against the transition.
Not long ago, this black dresser was, however, the first general counselor of the Supreme Court of Mali, a position from which he was dismissed in September 2021 after the “coup in the coup” of Assimi Goïta and his barracks of colonels.
Now he is multiplying attacks against transition authorities. Returning recently to the case that led to the arrest of former prime minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga (SBM), the magistrate attacked supporters of the executive and the judiciary. ” [Boubèye] expressed his desire to see the transition end on time. He was targeted. The transition advocates […] wanted an endless transition,” said Chérif Koné about the “Tiger’s” death in custody in March 2022.
The Boubèye case, a conspiracy?
To understand how this old picture of there The Supreme Court has become a staunch opponent, we have to go back to August 2021. Beginning three months earlier, Mali's “second phase of transition” began with a series of arrests of figures from the former regime. “The end of impunity”, this is what the new strongmen of Bamako promise.
Head of the processed personalities, Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga is placed under arrest warrant on August 26, 2021. The former prime minister is suspected of “forgery, use of forgery”, “fraud” and “favoritism” in connection with the purchase of a presidential plane in 2014, when he was Minister of Defense.
At the time, it was the Supreme Court of Mali that placed the politician under an arrest warrant. And this is where the shoe gets tight. Because, according to the Constitution of Mali, processes directed at senior figures in the State, including ministers, fall to the Supreme Court of Justice and not the Supreme Court.
However, this exceptional jurisdiction is a component of the National Assembly, which was dissolved during the August 2020 coup. Presided over by Wafi Ougadeye, who became special advisor to Assimi Goïta in March 2022, the Supreme Court defends itself by invoking jurisprudence that would allow it to judge the State's great clerks.
Political pressure and the fight against corruption
But not everyone turns out that way. “When the Supreme Court relaunched the Boubèye Maïga case, everyone thought of collusion between justice and transition proponents. Especially because the case had already been classified by the Economic and Financial Prosecutor's Office”, denounces a Malian judge.
“He endured them before the second coup, when Mahamadou Kassogué [qui deviendra ministre de la Justice] was public prosecutor”, says Cheick Mohamed Chérif Koné. “The authorities wanted results in the fight against corruption and lobbied the highest level of the Federal Supreme Court. I contented myself with remembering that the Federal Supreme Court was not a body of there transition”, adds the interested party.
Chérif Koné then becomes involved in a confrontation with Wafi Ougadeye and Mahamadou Timbo, respectively president and attorney general of the Supreme Court. The latter will have the head of the former, accused of having “violated his reservation obligation”. A sanction that will mark the end of the first episode of the fight for influence in the country's highest court.
The underside of a strike
The second act was accepted a year later, in November 2022. At the time, the news highlights the visit to Mali of the Burkina Faso coup captain Ibrahim Traoré on his first official trip, the monstrous demonstrations against blasphemy or even the arrest of 46 Ivorian soldiers in Bamako. The strike point, initiated at the same time by the magistrates, will go relatively unnoticed.
Officially, their unions are protesting a bill that would raise the retirement age of Supreme Court justices. But behind closed doors, another game is being played, with some saying that the postponement “aimed at keeping magistrates included in the transition in their positions”, says a judge.
As a result, “the Supreme Court is now completely caporalized”, denounces a chief from the Malian bar association. “The fight is already lost internally,” says our lawyer. The Justice Department has control over some unions, and senior Supreme Court officials have decided to support the transition. »
The rest is the political field, in which Cheick Mohamed Chérif Koné is committed. “I’m not on the side of the politicians,” replies the interested party. Magistrates have, like others, if not more, the right to oppose violations of the law when it is in the general interest. »
The judge's departure was in any case notified by the Attorney General of the Supreme Court, which reacted through a press release, this Thursday, March 16th. The latter promises “legal proceedings” against magistrates “for lack of inspiration in good attire”, which bring “emotional complaints against the responsible magistrates” of the Federal Supreme Court’s investigation files. Words aimed in particular, without naming him, Cheick Mohamed sheriff Kone.
