*The leader of the main opposition United Democratic Party, UDP, Ousainou
Darboe, has said that the 26 August executions of nine death row inmates by
the Gambia Government was not a constitutional obligation. *
Speaking to *The Standard* in an exclusive interview at his office in
Banjul, the 64-year-old constitutional lawyer asserted: “The constitution
does not state that those convicted of murder must willy-nilly be executed.
If that were so, there would be no reason why we would have Section 82 in
the Constitution. It is absolutely misleading to say that the president was
upholding the constitution when these executions took place. It is again
misleading to say that the death penalty was introduced by the constitution
and people voted for it in a referendum. Those people who said that the
constitution empowered the president to execute do not understand the
constitution. The constitution takes outside the class of murder,
deprivation of life carried out pursuant to judicial order. In 1996, the
constitution was not put [explained] to Gambians in piece-meal and no voter
had an option to say that he was voting to approve Section 13 or disapprove
Section 18 of the constitution. It was the thinking of small minds that
Section 18 was approved by Gambians at a referendum. It was the AFPRC
government that restored the death penalty and exercised legislative powers
that were not bestowed on them by the Gambian people. It was Decree 52
passed by the AFPRC military government that introduced the death
penalty.So Gambians had no say in the passing of the death penalty.

Before 1994, how many murder cases did we have in The Gambia? Between the
date when the death penalty was abolished and the date the death penalty
was restored, how many murder cases do we have? The Minister for the
Interior, Ousman Sonko, said in one year there were more than 20 murder
offences committed.”

Asked his opinion on the streaming of elders, women and youth groups to
State House to appeal for reprieve from the president, Darboe said: “One
thing that is clear was that the Jammeh government has realised that it has
committed the biggest blunder in executing these nine prisoners. And in
order to cover up their blunder, they resorted to self-lobbying. They
called on all APRC outfits to appeal to the president through the
vice-president for clemency. This self-lobby shows that no leader should be
intransigent and no leader should ignore local and international opinion on
issues like the death penalty or implementation of the death penalty. I do
not condone murder, manslaughter, infanticide and abortion. It is because
of my revulsion for the taking away of life that I do not defend anybody
charged with murder, infanticide, abortion and manslaughter. But that does
not mean that I support the imposition of death penalty as a punishment for
murder or any crime. One would have thought that if the death penalty were
a deterrent, murder cases would have been on the decline than on the
increase. Talking about 20 murder cases in one year, were not more than ten
defenceless unarmed school children killed one day in this country? There
is no legal justification for the killing of the students. Why were the
perpetrators not brought to court and prosecuted for murder? If those who
killed those innocent school children in 2000 were protected by any of the
exceptions in Section 18 of the constitution, the Indemnity Act would not
have been amended to absolve the perpetrators of those heinous crimes. Let
us stop appealing to the constitution to justify the unjustifiable. If
Section 82 was not in the constitution then we could all say the president
cannot be merciful to anybody. Those people who have been charged and are
being tried at the high court..why has the government not upheld the
constitution and allowed them decide for their trials be conducted by a
judge and jury as provided for in Section 24, Subsection 9 of the
constitution which was also an entrenched section. The implementation of
the death penalty will not attract investors to invest in the country.
President Jammeh and cohorts are trying to justify their blunder that the
executions were also meant to give confidence to investors by guaranteeing
their personal safety. I am saying that their argument that the death
penalty will give confidence to investors is puerile. There are countries
on the African continent where the murder rate a day is much higher than
The Gambia's murder rate in a decade and yet investors are going into those
countries in large percentage. There are countries in the sub-region where
the murder rate is higher and yet investors do not hesitate to invest in
there because they knew that their investment was guaranteed. In order to
attract investors in The Gambia, the government should be able to lure them
and guarantee their investment.”

Responding to assertions made by the Local Government and Regional
Administration minister, Lamin Waa Juwara, that the opposition endorsed the
death penalty in the constitution, the UDP leader retorted: “I do not like
responding to Juwara because he has several times said that this
constitution was tailor-made to suit President Jammeh and his cohorts. Any
serious minded person and any serious political party will certainly look
at the constitution in its entirety in order to see what changes should be
effected to it.”


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