Late Solo Sandeng & Jailed Fatoumata Jawara Justice Eunice Dada Nigerian Activist Judge
It has been almost three months since Lawyer Ousainou Darboe a senior member of the Gambia Bar Association was sentenced to three years in jail for simply staging a protest demanding the release of the body of a Gambian citizen Solo Sandeng who was arrested, tortured and killed while in State custody. Mr. Darboe’s sentencing came after two months of politically motivated trial which will go down in the history of the Gambia as the most disgraceful legal persecution of one of the most celebrated legal luminaries in the country.
The trial was marked by controversies and blatant violation of due process of law dictated by the Justice department and the Jammeh government. These violations were so obvious that the initial judge Justice Ottaba, a Cameroonian born judge who presided over the case quit citing political interference and “embarrassing” actions by the government in pursuing the case. Another Mercenary Nigerian Female Judge justice Eunice Dada who is a personal friend of the government prosecutor himself a Nigerian, took over the case and presided over the trial. The new justice was so inefficient she allowed State security personnel to interfere with defense lawyers from talking to their clients, clearly violating the lawyer client privilege. This led to the defense team walking away from the court and who never returned for the rest of the trial.
Despite protest and lack of legal representation for the accused, Justice Dada arrogantly continued to preside over the trail ignoring every legal injunction and due process filed in the High court to transfer the case. After facing numerous embarrassments in court of her lack of knowledge of the Gambian constitution, Justice Dada was determined to proof that she had the backing of the Jammeh regime and nothing was going to stop her from carrying out orders from the Office of the President to sentence Darboe and co to jail. She did just that on June 20th sentencing Darboe and 18 others to three years in jail without allowing a single statement at the time of sentencing from the accused as customary of Gambian law.
The million dollar question is why the Gambia Bar Association is still silence on the sentencing of Mr. Darboe one of the most senior respectable member of the Bar Association? It is clear that the nine members of the Bar Association who represented Mr. Darboe and Co who walked away cited evidence of Judicial interference during the trial. Does the Gambia Bar Association as the moral custodian of the law has a moral and ethical responsibility to condemn the open interference and blatant violations of due process of law by presiding judges and the justice department? Has the Bar Association stoop so low and retreated to the immoral practice of earning a living at the expense of citizen clients despite the open desecration of Gambian constitutional provisions in dispensing justice through the legal system? What is the responsibility of the Bar Association to not only its members and their business practices but to ensure that young magistrates and judges are bound by ethical and moral standards of law and justice in overseeing the delivery of justice?
Where is the new President of the Gambia Bar Association Mr. Saliue Taal who is believe to have obtained his legal education and graduated with Honors and an LLB from The University of Buckingham in the UK? According to the Bar Association website, there are over 200 legal firms practicing private law in the Gambia majority of whom if not all are members of the Bar Association. Where is the sense of urgency and judicial responsibility for these lawyers to challenge the blatant injustices in the Gambia and the jailing of Mr. Darboe? Have they succumbed to the threats from the dictator and compromised their legal and ethical duties to stand up for justice and fair legal treatment of their clients? Where do you draw the moral and professional obligation line for legal practitioners to take away money from their poor clients and make a hefty living only for their clients to be sent to jail through a sham legal process full of backroom deals? Shouldn’t the Gambia Bar Association have a moral stand on the situation and possibly even boycott the legal system if in fact the outcome of their clients’ fate is almost all certain; denial of bail, physical torture, rape and eventual sentencing?
It is our conviction that the Gambia Bar Association has morally, professionally and ethnically failed to adequately advocate for justice and represent their clients in current Gambian legal system. They have compromised their clients’ rights to fair trial and adequate representation. In our humble view, defending Gambian citizens in a sham judicial system costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars have yielded little to nothing for the poor citizens. We therefore challenge the Gambia Bar Association to emulate the independence of sister Bar Associations in Africa and around the world and not only condemn but demand the release of Mr. Darboe and others. You owe Mr. Darboe an obligation as a member and strong advocate of the Bar association a duty to highlight to the International community his illegal jailing.
At the very least the Bar Association can call on sister Bar Associations in Nigeria, Ghana and other African Nations to join them in condemning the open Judicial Interference in the Gambia by the Jammeh Administration. By engaging other legal organizations and openly calling out the Jammeh government, the Nigerian or Ghanaian Bar Association could put pressure on their governments to stop sending technical Judges from their native countries to aid the dictatorship in Gambia in dispensing injustices in Gambia. Failure to rise up and issue statements of protest against judicial malpractice by sitting judges, the Gambia Bar Association would settle for nothing less than the embarrassing footnotes of history in putting their business interest at the expense of fair dispensation of justice. They will go down in Gambian history as an institution that stood by and allow its members and clients to be tortured and paraded in court with evidence of torture and women wrapped in tattered clothes from being raped all night. If anything, this is enough for any custodians of the law to permanently boycott such a system until sanity is restored.