By Adama Makasuba, edited by Yusef Taylor, @FlexDan_YT
The Constitutional Review Commission informed journalists at its fourth press conference on Friday 21st December that it would issue the first public draft of the constitution in September 2019. The round-table press conference held at its headquarters in Kotu was an opportunity to update and clarify issues of the commission’s progress so far.
The commission mandated to review and draft a new constitution is about to conclude the first phase of its national consultation campaign. Chairperson of the commission, Cherno Jallow explained that “we expect to complete the public consultations including Diaspora consultations by June of next year. We are hoping by August, September of next year [2019] we would be in the position to [issue] a draft constitution for this country.”
Immediately his office finished public consultations they would commence the process of putting ideas gathered together. Once this constitution is done it will serve as the third-constitution of the smallest West African country since its independence in 1965.
Chairperson Jallow described the next phase of the process which will commence after the first draft of the constitution. First his office would have to agree on the feedback gathered from the public and prepare draft instructions before submitting it to a technical committee on constitutional drafting.
This he said would be followed by an action plan which would afford the public a second chance to look at the constitution in terms of their aspirations of what needs to be included and excluded from the first draft. So far the consultation has triggered a heated debate on citizenship, death penalty, Presidential qualification and Electoral reforms among others. The first phase of Public Consultations will conclude on Monday 31st December 2018.