CLLR. SAYMA SYRENIUS CEPHUS

Cllr. Sayma Syrenius Cephus is a Liberian citizen, a professional and seasoned courtroom lawyer, human rights advocate, social commentator and political analyst, journalist, and agronomist, spanning over a period of two decades.

He is a member of the Liberian Supreme Court and currently serves as the Solicitor-General and Chief Prosecutor of the Republic of Liberia, at the Ministry of Justice, and represents the Republic of Liberia in matters of both civil and criminal litigation.

He is also Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the Assembly of States Parties(ASP) to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court(ICC) which has legislative oversight over the affairs of the court.

He is a candidate for an LLM degree (online) in International Criminal Law and Justice, University of New Hampshire, the USA, and holds an LLB, from the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, a Bachelor of Science (BSC) degree from the College of Agriculture,   University of Liberia, and a certificate in journalism.

He has practiced as a journalist mainly in the print media for pretty close 15 years, and rose from the rank of a news editor, sub-editor, to copy editor and managing editor, and in later years, became publisher of the independent Plain Truth Newspaper.  To date, he is the only Liberian lawyer to have been  duly vetted,  qualified and admitted to practice law before the International Criminal Court(ICC) in The Hague, the United Nations backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon(STL); and  is  the first  African lawyer who is a non-European citizen, and a non- European resident, to have been admitted to the European Criminal Bar Association(ECBA), European Fraud and Compliance Law Group(EFCL); he is also the   Vice President of the Association of European Lawyers Network(AEA International Lawyers Network), Vice President to the advisory Board of Justinian Lawyers(JL), senior counsel of the Association of Defence Counsel Practicing Before International Courts and Tribunals (ADC-ICT), The Hague, Netherlands,  founding member of the International Criminal Court Bar Association (ICCBA), member of the international Law Association(ILA); member on the pro bono list of counsel for the  African Court on Human and Peoples Rights (ACtHPR) based in Arusha, Tanzania, and member of the International Association of Prosecutors(IAP).

Prior to becoming Solicitor-General of the Republic of Liberia, Cllr. Cephus served as Deputy Minister for Rural Development and Extension Services, Ministry of Agriculture, Assistant Minister of State in the office of the President of Liberia, Assistant Minister of State for Public Affairs, and  Presidential Press Secretary.

In private practice as a lawyer, he served Executive Director Justice & Public Interest Consortium Executive Director of the Justice and Public Interest Consortium Africa (JUPICA), Chief of Litigation, Kemp and  Associates Law Firm in Monrovia.

In March 2019, he served as LEAD COUNSEL for the managers of the Honorable Members of the House of Representatives of the 54th Legislature in the impeachment trial of former Associate Justice Kabineh Muhammad Ja’neh; one of the only two lawyers in Liberia’s 173 years history to have won a treason trial against the Republic of Liberia in Liberian court. He has handled some of the most controversial constitutional cases in the history of Liberia, including MPC et. al. v. National Election Commission et al [2011] and JUPICA et al. v NEC et al. [2014], which deal with the interpretation of Article 52 (c ) and the 10 years consecutive residency requirement for a presidential candidate immediately leading to elections, and Article 1  of the 1986 Constitution of the Republic of  Liberia regarding the authority to determine and defer new dates for elections in case of force majeure,  a decision that was initially the exclusive responsibility of the Elections Commissions but is now placed at the disposal of the National Legislature by the Liberian  Supreme Court.