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 1200 1000 800 registered 600 Resolved Column1 400 200 0 Banjul Farafenni Basse Total In a bid to clear the backlog of criminal cases, the new Chief Justice has issued a Practice direction which requires that as opposed to the traditional subject matter divisions in the High Court, all High Court Judges shall hear criminal cases. Correspondingly, all State Counsel, including those working in the Civil Litigation and International Law Division of the Attorney General’s Chambers, have also been assigned to handle criminal cases by the new Attorney General. The judiciary has also operationalized the decentralisation of the justice delivery system by opening High Courts in the Regions in order to improve access to judicial remedies. Furthermore, new Magistrates have been appointed together with additional support staff especially for courts in the rural areas and provided with necessary resource materials to aid with the dispensation of their duties. Currently, there are forty two (42) Magistrates and twenty-seven (27) Cadis. Private Legal Practitioners also take up cases on pro bono basis for less privileged members of society. The General Legal Council has included the offering of pro bono services as one of the considerations for the grant of the rank of Senior Advocate. It is hoped that this will boost the number of lawyers offering pro bono services in The Gambia. Notwithstanding the above gains, the Judiciary still faces some challenges especially in the taking of records of proceedings. Up to date, the Judges manually record proceedings and this causes great delay in the justice delivery system. 50