What The Assembly Changed With The Amendments

The National Assembly recently carried out some amendments on the 1997
constitution under the bill titled: “Amendment Bill 2001”. The bill, now an
act of parliament was a subject of a heated debate before it was put to vote
for it become law. The sections affected by the amendments were those
revolving around district chiefs, delimitation of constituencies the cadi
court among others.

Here goes the sections in parallel to the amended version. Section 58 of the
constitution originally read as: “subject to the provision of this
constitution and any Act of the National Assembly, the IEC shall be
responsible for the conduct and supervision of elections to the office of
District Chiefs,” which to amendment, this section was deleted and
substituted by the following: “The President shall appoint a district Seyfo
in consultation with the Secretary of State responsible for Local
Government.”

It further reads: “The Secretary of State responsible for Local Governments
may, in Consultations, with Divisional commissioner, make recommendations to
the National Assembly for the creation of new Seyfo district, “This, in
effect means that “Seyfolu” which is the new name for “chiefs” under the
amendment will now be appointed instead of elected by the people at the
grass root. Secondly, section 50 of the constitution said: “The IEC shall
demarcate the constituencies for the purpose of elections to the National
Assembly.

The number of constituencies shall correspond with the number of elected
members of the National Assembly,” with the amendment, the section now
reads: “An Act of the National Assembly shall establish a Boundaries
commission which shall be responsible for demarcating constituency
boundaries for the purpose of elections to the National Assembly.” It went
on adding: “The National Assembly shall prescribe by an Act, the criteria
for the demarcation of the constituency boundaries.” Another important
section put up for amendment was section Nine (9) dealing with citizenship
by birth. According to the original text as started in the constitution:

“Every person born in the Gambia after the coming into force to this
constitution shall be presumed to be a citizen of the Gambia by birth.” The
following was added to the first version:” Every persons born in the Gambian
after the coming into force of this constitution shall be presumed to be a
citizen of the Gambia by birth if at the time of his or her birth, one of
his or her parent is a citizen of the Gambia. Immediately after section 12,
a new section on dual citizenship was inserted and it goes:

“A citizen of the Gambia who acquires the citizenship of another country
may, if he or she so desires, retain his or her citizenship of the Gambia.”
This means that Gambians can now enjoy dual, citizenship and it was a
section that did not attract so much debate unlike some other sections
during the amendment process. Section 88 of the constitution was also
affected by the amendment. Sub-section one “1” of it says: “The National
Assembly shall comprise (a) forty-eight members elected from the
constituencies demarcated by the boundaries commission; and (b) five members
nominated by the president. Before, the constitution spelt out that the
assembly should consist of 45 member out of which 41 would be elected and
four nominated by the President.”

On Annual Estimates, Section 152 was also amended to say: “The President
shall cause to prepare and lay before the National Assembly annual estimates
and appropriation… The National Assembly shall, within seven days of the
estimates being laid before it, give consideration to and approve the
estimates.” The original version stated that the president shall cause to be
prepared and laid before the National Assembly at least thirty days before
the end of the financial year, estimates of the revenue and expenditure of
the Gambia for the following financial year.

On judiciary, the amendment on section 134 has given powers to the President
to appointment of members of the criminal court. It reads: “The members of
the special criminal shall be appointed by the president in consultation
with the judicial service commission.” Previously, the constitution
proclaimed: “There shall be a special criminal court which shall be
constituted by a panel consisting of a chairman and not less than two other
panel members.” The appointment of the members of the panel was to be done
by the judicial service commission subject to the approval of the National
Assembly. Further amendments were the insertion of new sections on the
Appeals panel and the appointment of a single judge to constitute the high
court.



The Silent Government

A French adage says “Who fails to utter a word agrees” (Qui ne dit mot
consent) and we are forced to believe that this government agrees with
charges levelled against it and which it chooses to ignore. We need to be
contradicted if our perception is wrong. But lets look at the recent charges
made against it. One: Very serious charges were made by Hon. Hamat Bah in
the Assembly regarding currency notes being reprinted for circulation with
old ones to create a surplus government intends to use for the elections.

Nothing was said to counter the claim neither from the Central Ban nor from
the Ministry of Finance. A very serious accusation which has not only local
but international ramifications. Two: As Minister Ousman Badjie pointed out
in his speech to commemorate World Telecommunications Day, the Information
Super Highway and particularly the Internet is now well entrenched in The
Gambia.

This simply means that many Gambians are connected and have access to
information and particularly to sites where Gambian issues are discussed and
debated. Some two years or so, Sedat Jobe had to respond to some postings on
the net about what was termed as “Jawara’s threats”. The past month or so
has seen postings on Gambia L on the July 22 Coup and its aftermath.

One Ebou Coly is giving accounts of what transpired in the 1994 coup and
what the AFPRC called the November 11 attempted Coup. Very, really very
serious accusations are levelled against members of the former ruling
council and nothing, nothing is said here in the country in reaction to
these very serious allegations.

There are postings to be ignored but there are also postings that need
reactions because they deal with maters of life and death. Now, the talk in
town is “Did you read part three? Part four? The answer is of course YES!
Everybody reads these either on line or from printouts from the net. This
points to the fact, that everybody knows what is being discussed which makes
it paramount for the government to urgently react now to clear the air..




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