How Jammeh weaponised the law

Gambia's Truth Commission is conducting a series of hearings with members of the judiciary, who tell how the former regime of Yahya Jammeh set up a system to control the judiciary. ‘There is no way the President on his own could have had the power to turn the Gambia from what it was to being an Islamic State,’ Gaye Sowe has told the commission in Banjul. The former magistrate and constitutional lawyer was one of the five legal experts called to dissect how Jammeh ‘weaponised’ the legal system. A Justice Info analysis notes that Jammeh's 22-year rule was a mixed dose of brute force and draconian laws. In 2014, he said 'there is nowhere in the world where the judiciary is independent’. Jammeh's relationship with lawyers was troubled from the start, recalled Sheriff Marie Tambadou, a senior lawyer who appeared before the commission last month. Following the 1994 coup, the Bar Association issued a statement condemning the military takeover. Salieu Taal, the current president of the Gambia Bar Association, last week listed the names of the lawyers arrested under Jammeh's regime. They included Antouman Gaye, a criminal lawyer who is leading a team prosecuting seven policemen implicated in the 2016 death in custody of opposition activist Ebrima Sandeng. He said the current speaker of Gambia's National Assembly, Mariam Jack Denton, was illegally detained for 111 days without charge. The hearings continue.