By Yankuba Jallow
Lawyer Omar Jammeh has in June filed a motion in the high court seeking his case to be held in closed doors and for Foroyaa to stop from covering his case.
Lawyer Jammeh is in a legal tussle with Momodou Lamin Jarju alias Rongo. Lawyer Jammeh sued Rongo claiming One Million Dalasi (D1,000,000) for defamation. Rongo filed a counter claim against the Lawyer claiming over One Hundred and Seventy-Five Million (D175,000,000) from the junior lawyer.
In support of his motion seeking to stop Foroyaa and all other media houses from covering the case, Lawyer Omar Jammeh filed a 14-paragraph affidavit (statement) to convince the court to accept what he is asking for. He mainly relied on what he learnt from Professor Awason during his university studies.
“That Professor Awason also informed me that and I verily believe same to be true that a suit in which a lawyer is involved needs not to be used as a source of popularity or earning by some other people at the expense of the profession,” Lawyer Jammeh wrote in his affidavit (statement).
He stated that the integrity of the legal profession must be protected “at all cost.” He added that his university professor informed him that a lawyer should not represent a client in a case involving another legal practitioner.
He said he filed the suit against Rongo on the 21 May 2024, who was served with the process on the following day. He added that the case was supposed to come on 2 July 2024 at 12 pm. Rongo filed his statement of defence and supporting documents on 21 June 2024 and he (Lawyer Jammeh) was served on 24 June.
“That to my surprise, this suit is already reported by Foroyaa Newspaper dated 26 June 2024. This is even before the case is mentioned,” Lawyer Jammeh said.
He added: “This is a clear manifestation that Foroyaa Newspaper is hungry in publishing all sort of news about the case at the detriment of the legal profession and my private life.”
The Lawyer said the paper should be covering the case in the interest of justice, the legal profession and his private life.
Rongo filed an affidavit (statement) opposing the application of the lawyer. Rongo stated that the integrity of the legal profession dictates that officers of the law, including lawyers, must act honourably and with integrity at all times. He said this does not make lawyers “sacred cows”. He countered the lawyer on the issue of “popularity” as indicated by the Lawyer is misplaced because it is the lawyer who sued him. He said the case was initiated by the lawyer and if there is anyone seeking popularity, it is the lawyer. Rongo stressed that he has a constitutional right to seek and obtain legal representation in the case as opposed to the claim of Lawyer Jammeh, who said no lawyer should represent Rongo since the case involves him.
On the issue of Foroyaa, Rongo said: “Foroyaa Newspaper has a long standing history of objective, professional and ethical journalism in the Gambia. I had no influence in the substantive publication of Foroyaa Newspaper and any suggestion that the publication was biased in my favour is preposterous, unfounded and malicious.”
Rongo said the court proceedings should be held in open court. He added that Lawyer Jammeh has failed to come up with genuine reasons to warrant restriction for the publication of the case by the media.
Lawyer Omar Jammeh filed another 6-paragraph statement in which he stated that he was informed by a Foroyaa report “Nelson Mendy” that Rongo was the one who provided Foroyaa the documents to publish the case. The Lawyer stated the report further informed him that the case was published by Foroyaa and not him, and that was why there was no name in the article.
Reporter’s Note
I do not intend to touch on the case. However, it is important to state that Foroyaa does not have any reporter with the name “Nelson Mendy.”
Another matter that should be pointed out is that Foroyaa has reporters in almost all courts. We do not have to necessarily wait for a matter to be called before we publish it. We follow public interest cases. A case involving a lawyer, an officer of the law and officer of the courts, is a public interest case. We have published several cases involving lawyers, including senior lawyers. If Lawyer Omar Jammeh wants his case to be exceptional, it is best that he battles it out in the court.
It is unbecoming for a legal practitioner to called out a media house and label it “hungry in publishing.” It is simple, we have our presence in courts countrywide.
Foroyaa has no interest whatsoever in this case. We are there to inform the public. If the Lawyer finds any biases or mistakes in what was published, he should write to Foroyaa and clearly indicate that. Foroyaa was very balanced in what we published. We published two stories on the same day and both of them were in the front page. One was about Lawyer Omar Jammeh and the other was about Rongo.
