THE REPUBLIC OF THE GAMBIA’S COMBINED REPORT ON THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN & PEOPLES’ RIGHTS &
INITIAL REPORT ON THE PROTOCOL TO THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA
The new Chief justice has instituted a number of measures to ensure the independence and impartiality of
the judiciary such as(a) The reconstitution of the Judicial Service Commission and the restoration of their Constitutional
powers in relation to the appointment of Judicial officers, their disciplinary control and removal;
(b) The appointment of Judicial officials on pension, instead of the contract appointments that were
the order of the day previously;
(c) The exercise of budgetary autonomy;
(d) the abolition of the system of contract judges;
(e) upgrade of the incentives and terms and conditions for Judicial Officials to attract more
Gambian legal experts to the Bench;
(f) the establishment of a Communication Unit to provide access to information and raise
awareness about the Judiciary and what it offers to the public;
(g) establish additional courts in the region, such as the Children’s Court in Brikama and Basse;
(h) establish three new Cadi (Sharia) Courts to increase access to those courts and to reduce the
backlog of cases.
Currently, there are Twenty-Four (24) judges, Forty-Two (Magistrates) Magistrates and twenty-seven (27)
Cadis. In order to promote gender parity within the Judiciary, of the twenty-one (21) Judges, nine (9) are
female and of the thirty-eight (38) Magistrates more than 50% are Female.
In its effort to ensure the continuous access to justice, the Judiciary of The Gambia with the support from
UNDP prepared a compendium of the Sharia law relating to marriage divorce and inheritance. The main
purpose of this document is to ensure that all laws relating to the personal laws of Muslims as provided for
in the Constitution of The Gambia, could be easily accessible. This compendium has been most useful
particularly to Muslim women who sought redress from the Cadi (Sharia) courts.
In a bid to further ensure access to justice, the Judiciary with the support of UNDP prepared rules of
procedure for The Cadi Appeals Panel and the Cadi Courts which were hitherto unavailable and training
was provided for all Cadis on the application said rules of procedure in their respective courts. There is now
a prescribed procedure in these courts which not only ensure order in procedure but gives litigants the
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