A lawyer representing the three Warrap State youths in a defamation battle with the General Education and Instruction Minister Awut Deng Acuil on Monday rubbished the accusation against their clients.
The County Court Grade One Magistrate on Monday completed cross-examining a representative from the Education ministry, who accused the youths of defaming the Minister for failing to conduct the Certificate of Primary Examination in Luacjang in August 2021.
In his argument, lead defense counsel Kiir Chol Deng argued that the accused were exercising their rights for questioning the ministry for failing to conduct the exams on schedule.
“We are saying the government is a public institution and that is true. What the accused did was constructive question to the ministry, the ministry failed to carry on the exams on the 8th August 2021 and we were asking the representative where the fault here is because in defamation, the statement must be false,” Chol said.
Chol said there was no ground for the Education ministry to prosecute the accused as the ministry has no legal ground as a public institution to sue.
In February 2021, a group of the Luanjang Community youths represented by the interim chairperson, Marcelo Deng Magon, wrote to President Salva Kiir accusing the Minister of barring the Primary Eight pupils from parts of Tonj East County from sitting the 2021 final examinations under the pretext of insecurity.
The Minister then filed a suit in a Juba court against Machiek Dongrin, Marcelo Deng Magon and Tinjok Ruben Dhal, a medical student from the Bahr el-Ghazal University in February 2022.