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   | Author Shares His Views On The Legality Of Jammeh’s Right To Benefits And Entitlements | By Almamy Fanding Taal The quick answer to the above question  is NO and the long answer is it's debatable!  The law of the land must be drafted clearly without ambiguity in all cases particularly in respect to former President Jammeh. A law made by our sovereign legislature in the context of a transition away from dictatorship must clearly define the  rights, benefits, entitlements, terms and conditions of former leaders in unequivocal terms.  Clarity and brevity are the twin objectives of legislative drafting. Thus, it  is misleading to engage in hypothetical scenarios where the law is crystal clear as in both enactments ! Therefore, the NAMs and the AG must not engage in what-if speculations and plotting future scenarios. The TRRC indictment is a legal basis to disqualify JAMMEH from benefiting under the new Act. Cleary no reference is made to either the TRRC or the Janneh Commission, 

 |  Legal Luminary Hammers His Views On The Impacts Of Colonial Settlers, And The Geopolitical Crisis In The Middle East | By Almamy Fanding Tall The European tribes of the human race have a lot to answer for on the deplorable state of our planet. From conquest of non-European lands, rapacious looting of national artifacts and the plunder of natural resources, genocide slavery settler-colonialism to full-blown colonization  through assimilation practiced by the French speaking clans of France and Belgium predominantly in West & Central Africa and pockets in the Caribbean and Polynesia until the middle of the 20th century when the liberation movements demanded independence. Their British cousins were nor less avaricious but British colonialism was more subtle in style with the twin mechanisms of control being ‘indirect rule’ and ‘divide and conquer’. A sprinkle of british civil servants with the Governor General as the representative of crown controlled the destiny of more half of t

| The threat of military action in Niger by ECOWAS, and the role which The Gambia must play as a member state |   By Pa Louis Sambou   I t is certainly neither an inaccuracy nor an exaggeration to state that the Western part of the African continent which is officially known as West Africa, has had, and still experience crises which by any measure, are of far greater magnitude and scope than a coup in the Republic of Niger. Boko Haram terrorists kidnapping innocent schoolgirls, ISIS – inspired jihadist terrorising communities and conquering swathes of territory in the Sahel regions of West Africa, Alpha Condé, Alasan Outtara, corrupting their republican Constitutions, and Mackey Sall corrupting Senegalese democracy to prolong their respective times in office but to name a few of the crises which faced and still face the region, albeit without any serious response from the regional bloc, ECOWAS. However, ECOWAS officialdom wish to have us believe that a bloodless mutiny in Niger which e

| The veiled ploy, masked behind the school ‘veil’ civil suit |   By Pa Louis Sambou P overty, crime, corruption, unemployment, worse than poor healthcare facilities and outcomes but to name a few of those issues which confronts The Gambia and which has serious societal consequences for ordinary people. In the face of such crises, apparently, in the unconventional wisdom of some, pupils’ ‘right’ to rebel against reasonable school regulations, is top priority – a ‘fundamental right’ which merits ‘special’ legal protection some fancifully argue (with a straight face no doubt), and hence the targeted civil suit against the respective Christian mission schools all of which indicate a very strong determination to vigorously resist the insidious invitation to permit the boundaries of school discipline to be the domain of external forces whose views and values are so antithetical to their own, among other things, they’re fatally hostile to the interests and principle of education as we und

B y Pa Louis Sambou   D uring the same week in which the subject of reintroduction of the death penalty in the UK held mainstream media bandwidth hostage, for those in opposition to such ineffective penal measure, it must have been a breath of fresh air to learn of  The Gambia NHRC’s publication headed: “ Advisory note on the abolition of the death penalty in The Gambia ”. This view is certainly consistent with the arguments advanced in making the case for abolition, but less so, for aspects of the publication which are so detached from the subject matter, I regret to say they give relevance to the phrase: ‘never judge a book by its cover’.   The death penalty, like a few other sticky areas of our legal order, is an adverse relic of colonialism which serves absolutely no useful purpose and for which there are much more effective alternatives. I cannot conceive of any situation in which State-sanctioned killing as a means of punishment would make society a better place; as a matter of f

| The Truth About The Rapidly Thinning Boundary Between ECOMIG and Senegalese Government Foreign Policy Interests & Its Implications |      By Pa Louis Sambou   T he presence of foreign troops of whatsoever nationality, fold or grade, on any third country is an exceptional phenomenon which is bound to attract a considerable degree of curiosity from ordinary citizens. The fact that this is so in our case is not an exception at all. Besides, one of the benefits of living in an open democratic society is, it avails as of right and constitutional entitlement, the freedom for questions to be asked of matters of public interest which are not fully understood. In light of the active provocation of conflict between The Gambia and MFDC fighters in Senegal’s Casamance regions by the foreign troops in question, it is of paramount importance that hard-hitting questions be asked as to whether these foreign troops are staying far too long for their own good and undoing all the good they have don