QUESTION OF THE DAY
When a person is guilty of human rights violation of the worst type he or she could only be sentenced to the harshest punishment of life imprisonment or death. However, when a country is found guilty of human rights violation its integrity erodes and its standing among the world family of nations declines.
Society must not respond to wrong doing by doing wrong to remedy it. Two wrongs cannot make a right.
Section 19 of the Constitution is clear. The order given by section 17 of the Constitution is also clear. Section 19(3)(b) states:
“Any person who is arrested or detained upon reasonable suspicion of his or her having committed, or being about to commit, a criminal offence under the law of The Gambia, and who is not released, shall be brought without undue delay before a court and, in any event, within seventy-two hours.”
Section 17(1) orders that,
“The fundamental human rights and freedoms enshrined in this Chapter shall be respected and upheld by all organs of the Executive and its agencies, the Legislature and, where applicable to them, by all natural and legal persons in The Gambia, and shall be enforceable by the Courts in accordance with this Constitution.”
