Dear Momodou/members,
Could it be that Justice Hassan Jallow was made to resign because of the
undernoted reason culled from the Sierra leone Web:
25 July: Judges from Sierra Leone, Canada and Cameroon will comprise the
Trial Chamber of Sierra Leone's war crimes tribunal, according to separate
announcements made Thursday by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Sierra
Leonean Vice President Solomon Berewa. Under the Special Court statute, a
majority of the three-member Trial Chamber and the five-member Appeals
Chamber would be international justices appointed by Annan, with the rest
nominated by the Sierra Leone government. Named to the Trial Chamber were
former Sierra Leone High Court Judge Bankole Thompson , currently a
professor at Eastern Kentucky University in the United States; Pierre
Boutet, a liaison officer in Canada's Defence Department and former Judge
Advocate General of the Canadian forces; and Benjamin Mutanga Itoe, a
Cameroonian Supreme Court Judge. A Nigerian Supreme Court Justice, Emmanuel
Ayoola, will sit on the Appeals Chamber along with Gambian Supreme Court
Justice and former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General Alhaji Hassan B.
Jallow and Kosovo Supreme Court Justice Renate Winter of Austria. The two
Appeals Chamber judges named by Sierra Leone were former Sierra Leonean
Supreme Court Justice Gelaga King (pictured left), who currently practices
criminal law in the U.K. with the Chambers of William Clegg QC, and Geoffrey
Robertson, a Queen's Counsel and head of the Doughty Street Chambers in
Britain. The secretary-general and the Sierra Leone government jointly chose
two alternate judges: Isaac Aboagye from Ghana, who is currently serving as
a High Court justice in Botswana, and Elizabeth Muyovwe, a High Court judge
from Zambia. The Special Court is charged with prosecuting a handful of
persons deemed to bear the greatest responsibility for war crimes committed
in Sierra Leone since 30 November 1996, the date of the ill-fated Abidjan
Peace Agreement. Chief Prosecutor David Crane of the United States and
Registrar Robin Vincent of the United Kingdom are expected to start work
later this month, Annan's spokesman said in New York.

Sierra Leone has asked the Commonwealth to provide judges and prosecutors to
strengthen Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Justice Minister
and Attorney-General Eke Halloway told the Sierra Leone Web on Thursday. In
order to speed up the pace of prosecutions, he added, he will also appoint a
senior judge to take the lead in prosecuting corruption cases. The moves
come amid mounting pressure from international donor nations, and in
particular from Britain, to tackle the problem of rampant public corruption
in the country. Last February, Britain’s Minister for International
Development warned that future aid would be tied to progress in reducing
corruption, and in May a British official told the Sierra Leone Web that the
current warm relationship between Sierra Leone and Britain could chill
considerably if the problem were not addressed. Britain and Sierra Leone are
currently negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which addresses
the level of financial assistance and defines the future relationship
between the two countries, "setting out our commitments and what we expect
to see in return to ensure that these commitments remain in place," an
official in London said on Thursday. Britain has allocated £1.4 million for
the ACC, and the official added that "anti-corruption figures highly in the
negotiations."  While the memorandum makes no specific mention of providing
judges and prosecutors for the ACC, "it is something we are looking at
closely" at the request of President Kabbah and the Government of Sierra
Leone, he said. Halloway acknowledged that prosecutions had got off to a
slow start, and he said he was looking for ways to remove bottlenecks in
both his office and in the Commission. So far, he said, the ACC has sent
some 25 cases to the Attorney-General’s office for prosecution, most of them
"small time cases" involving lower-level offences which would be handled in
Magistrate’s Court. The Attorney-General’s office is still waiting on the
ACC for documents relating to five or six cases which will be tried before
Sierra Leone’s High Court, where a former cabinet minister and a permanent
secretary face trial on corruption charges. Just two persons, a former
minister and a judge, have been convicted to date. Halloway cited a number
of problems for the lack of progress, including insufficient staff and
logistics, and even flaws in the anti-corruption statute itself which, he
said, he was seeking to amend. One of these provisions requires that the
Anti-Corruption Commissioner personally swear in witnesses, meaning that the
Commissioner would have to travel around the country to administer the oath
whenever depositions from witnesses were taken.

The Sierra Leone Police have opened criminal investigations into the killing
last week of a black market currency trader, allegedly by Nigerians, as well
as the deaths of two persons in rioting which followed the discovery of
Mohamed Jan Bah’s body in a guest house on Circular Road, the director of
the Criminal Investigation Department said on Thursday. Deputy Police
Commissioner Tamba Gbekie told the Sierra Leone Web that an autopsy showed
Bah had died by strangulation and suffocation. Documents found in the room
where he was killed pointed to the involvement of Nigerian named Pascal, who
has disappeared and is being sought by police. Gbekie said four Nigerians
were in police custody and were cooperating with the investigation, but he
said they were being held as material witnesses and not currently believed
to have been involved in the crime. The Deputy Commissioner said the CID was
also investigating the two deaths during the riots which, some civil society
organisations have alleged, resulted from an excessive use of force by the
Nigerian peacekeepers who intervened to put down the violence. Gbekie said
it was too early in the investigation to draw any conclusions, and he
suggested that police were being cautious in talking about the case in order
to avoid stirring up further  violence. "The downtown is full of
ex-combatants," he said. Meanwhile, a police spokesman has dismissed
speculation that United Nations peacekeepers had intervened without being
asked by Sierra Leonean authorities. "We operate as a team, as a security
network, because we are all stakeholders in the security issue," police
spokesman Philip Wellington told the Sierra Leone Web. "It doesn’t
necessarily mean that the Sierra Leone Police have to call the UNAMSIL
before they can come in. They can come in at any time. In fact, UNAMSIL is
in charge of security in the entire country. You know, we are taking over
just little by little because we are trying to get police primacy. But we
have not achieved that yet, and it is an ongoing process. So their own
mandate, I’m sure, makes provision for them to come in at any time where
there is a civil disturbance."

Source: www.sierra-leone.org/slnews.html

>From: Momodou Camara <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Justice Hassan Jallow Fired Action Bewilders Lawyers, Judges
>Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 05:54:00 -0500
>
>Justice Hassan Jallow Fired Action Bewilders Lawyers, Judges
>
>The Independent (Banjul)
>NEWS
>July 26, 2002
>Posted to the web July 26, 2002
>
>By Omar Bah
>Banjul
>
>Justice Hassan Bubacarr Jallow of the Supreme Court has had his services
>terminated reports reaching The Independent suggest.
>
>According to sources a letter of July 23 to that effect signed by the
>Solicitor General Raymond Sock from the Attorney General's Chambers was
>forwarded to Justice Jallow the very day it was signed.
>
>According to reports although the did not indicate where the directive
>emanated from, it categorically pointed out that Justice Jallow's services
>with the Supreme Court were no longer required.
>
>According to reports immediately after receiving the letter, Justice Jallow
>tendered his resignation and packed out of the office.
>
>According to subsection 4 of the Gambian constitution 'a judge of a
>superior court may only be removed from office for inability to perform the
>functions of his or her office, whether arising from infirmity of body or
>mind, or from misconduct.' It is far from certain whether such factors were
>applicable in his removal.
>
>Although plausible reasons for his termination are hard to come by Justice
>Jallow's removal may have something to do with his recent ruling in a case
>between Ousman Sabally and the state that went against the latter.
>
>Another less plausible reason is being linked with his reported absence at
>the July 22nd celebrations on Monday.
>
>Justice Hassan Jallow, who is also a sitting judge in The Hague, was the
>Attorney General and Minister of Justice in the first republic for about
>ten years. He later got his appointment as the only Gambian Supreme Court
>judge following the advent of the Supreme Court as the highest court of law
>on the land during the second republic.
>
>Lawyers at the High Court are jittery over Justice Jallow's removal. As the
>news descended on the court precinct Wednesday the atmosphere was one of
>bewilderment, sorrow and anxiety.
>
>One female lawyer commenting on the situation said, it was interesting that
>Justice Jallow's termination letter did not indicate the source of the
>directive. 'Everybody knows that a judge cannot be terminated in that
>manner' she argued.
>
>She said the national constitution has made provisions for the termination
>of judges, which are to follow stipulated procedures. 'The state cannot
>dismiss a judge at pleasure nor can civil servants be dismissed at
>pleasure' she indicated. She observed that a situation was arising where
>everything was being taken for granted because people have not bothered to
>challenge unconstitutional actions, leaving their perpetrators to enjoy
>impunity for too long.
>
>The lawyer called on the entire Bar and Bench to boycott the courts and
>demand explanation from the government for what they described as its high-
>handedness.
>
>The Gambia Judiciary is no stranger to such shake-ups in the second
>republic. Justice Robin Coker of the High Court, Ousman Jammeh formerly
>High court Master, Magistrate Borry Touray, L.K Mboge and Magistrate Darboe
>all suffered the same fate.
>
>Meanwhile section 141 subsection 2 © of the 1997 constitution states
>that, 'subject to the provisions of this section, a judge of the superior
>court © may have his/her appointment terminated by the president in
>consultation with the Judicial Service Commission.' Subsection 5 reads, 'a
>judge may be removed from his/her office if notice in writing is given to
>the Speaker, signed by not less than half of all the voting members of the
>National Assembly, of a motion that a judge is unable to exercise the
>function of his or her office or any of the grounds stated in subsection 4
>proposing that the matter should be investigated under this section.'
>
>Subsection 6 reads, that 'when a motion of notice is received by the
>Speaker under subsection 5, the Speaker shall forthwith cause a vote to be
>taken on the motion without debate.'
>
>Subsection 7 reads, 'if such motion is adopted by the votes of not less
>than two third of the National Assembly shall, by resolution appoint a
>tribunal consisting of three persons, at least one of whom shall hold or
>shall have held high judicial office, he shall be the chairman of the
>tribunal'.
>
>Subsection (b) reads 'the tribunal shall investigate the matter and shall
>report to the National Assembly through the Speaker whether or not it finds
>the allegations specified in the motion have been substantiated.
>
>'(C) If the tribunal reports to the National Assembly that it finds the
>particulars of any such allegations have not been substantiated no further
>proceedings shall be taken in respect of that allegation.
>
>'(D) If the tribunal reports to the National Assembly that it finds that
>the particulars of any such allegations have been substantiated, National
>Assembly members shall consider the report at the first convenient meeting,
>and if, or a motion supported by the votes of not less than two third of
>all the members, the National Assembly resolves that the judge be removed
>from office, the judge shall immediately cease to hold office'.
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
>Web interface
>at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
>To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
>[log in to unmask]
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Al-salaamu alaykum wa rahmat-Allaahi wa barakaatuhu (Peace be upon you,
and the mercy of Allaah and His blessings).


With the very best of good wishes,
Musa Amadu Pembo
Glasgow,
Scotland
UK.
[log in to unmask]
Da’wah is to convey the message with wisdom and with good words. We should
give the noble and positive message of Islam. We should try to emphasize
more commonalities and explain the difference without getting into
theological arguments and without claiming the superiority of one position
over the other. There is a great interest among the people to know about
Islam and we should do our best to give the right message.
May Allah,Subhana Wa Ta'Ala,guide us all to His Sirat Al-Mustaqim (Righteous
Path).May He protect us from the evils of this life and the hereafter.May
Allah,Subhana Wa Ta'Ala,grant us entrance to paradise .
We ask Allaah the Most High, the All-Powerful, to teach us that which will
benefit us, and to benefit us by that which we learn. May Allaah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala grant blessings and peace to our Prophet Muhammad and his family
and
companions..Amen.


_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~