The United Nations deputy envoy in Liberia Louis Aucoin has called for a close partnership between the people, security agencies and the justice system, for effective delivery of justice in Liberia.

“The security agencies and the justice system must connect with the people; must keep them informed of programs, rights, options, services and opportunities to be heard,” Mr. Aucoin stated in brief remarks at the launch of an outreach campaign to publicize a regional justice and security hub being constructed in Gbarnga through the UN Peace Building Fund, to make justice accessible to the people of Bong, Nimba and Lofa counties.
 

The Gbarnga hub, a model for four others to be constructed in Liberia, will have facilities to strengthen justice and security through a service-centre and decentralized systems approach by delivering key administrative and operational support to justice and security providers. 
 

Mr. Aucoin, who is the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Rule of Law in Liberia, described the launch of the campaign as the laying of the “groundwork for a more capable and responsive criminal justice system, working in close partnership with the people, to ensure peace, security, and the rule of law.”
 

He urged the various elements of the criminal justice system that would be operating at the hub to work in collaboration, saying the effectiveness of the hub concept would be seen “when all the various components of the criminal justice system work closely with each other to deliver services to the public, and when the public works with the criminal justice system to deliver the desired outcomes.”
 

Launching the campaign, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia, His Honour Philip Banks said the idea of the hub is intended to bring justice to the doorstep of the people, noting that having the police, immigration, corrections and courts at one place would ensure swift adjudication of justice. Justice Banks charged the outreach team to fully explain the hub concept and its services to people for them to understand what the Government of Liberia was doing to give them justice and protection.
 

For her part, Minister of Justice Christiana Tah commended the efforts of the international community in rehabilitating the justice system in Liberia, adding that the hub was one of the strategies being deployed by the government for Liberians to fully take charge of their own security.
 

“As Liberian citizens, we have to take charge of our own security; we have to take responsibility for our security, and the government cannot do it alone, the Ministry of Justice cannot do it alone; all of us have to do it,” she said.
 

The Gbarnga ceremony was attended by the local political leadership and a cross-section of citizens of Nimba, Lofa and Bong counties.