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Gambia rescinds controversial death penalty for drug offenders
Thursday, 07 April 2011 16:04
JollofNews - Gambia is withdrawing a controversial law past recently which would have seen people convicted of drug
related offenses put to death.The country’s lawmakers reportedly supported a bill for the abolition of the law approved earlier in October last year, which imposed the death penalty on convicts found in possession of at least 2kg of cocaine or heroin.
The Gambian law makers also approved new amendments, all presented before the Gambian National Assembly on Monday by the country’s Attorney General
and minister of Justice, Edward Gomez.According to the new law, death sentences for drug-related offences will henceforth be replaced by life imprisonment alongside hash fines.
The same Justice Minister, Edward Gomez, last year, shortly after the passing of the controversial law, defended the Gambia government’s decision to use “the strongest punishment legally available” to deter narco-traffickers.
"We should use draconian laws against criminals who are putting the life of the cream of the society (the young ones) at risk,” Gomez told participants at the opening ceremony of the 48th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights in Banjul in last November.
“We have the duty to protect our society," he stressed, adding that failure to do so will tantamount to an abdication of responsibility.
At the time, Gomze felt that using capital punishment for drug dealers was the best way to eradicate drug trafficking in The Gambia and keep communities safe.
However, in presenting this latest bill last Monday, Gomez noted that the amendment of the Drug Control Act 2010 overlooked Section 18 (2) of The Gambia Constitution of 1997 which stipulates that no court in the country “shall be competent to impose a sentence of death for any offence unless the sentence is prescribed by law and the offence involves violence, or the administration of any toxic substance, resulting in the death of another person.”
Accordingly, the new amendments would now be known as the Drugs Control (Amendment) Act 2011, Trafficking in Person (Amendment) Act 2011 and Criminal Code (Amendment) Act 2011 respectively.
Written by Augustin Jatta
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Comments
We rather prefer that to go back to the colonial mentality of your ancestors such as: Prime Minister: Winston Churchill or the then President Theodore Roosevelt or Joseph Stalin of Russia.
You see, your true and real Blood is now circulating in your xenophobic system for people to see what I used to tell them here when some of them looking upon you as a blessing without knowing that you are the GOI-TRE of our Necks these days, Should I compare you here with former President Pieter Willem Botha of Southern Africa (The Mosquito)?
Please give us a Break, we don't need your stinky service in our mids.
In the service of SeneGamBissau I remain
during the much maligned "Witch Hunts"?
I do not recall any proscecutions resulting from this?
So where do we guage the sincerity here?
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