The People’s Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS) Party Leader, Hon. Halifa Sallah, harshly attacked the National Assembly for rejecting the 2024 draft constitution during a press conference on Wednesday. He maintained that a crucial chance to show leadership and involve the public in a substantive constitutional revision process was lost by the legislature.
Sallah pointed out that even though the administration created the draft, the National Assembly has an obligation to hold its own public consultation in order to make up for the absence of one.
The executive prepared the 2024 draft, but it ends there when it is presented to the National Assembly. They don’t have the power to force it on anyone in the hopes that it would become law. It was the National Assembly’s chance to demonstrate to the administration that if they did not consult, the National Assembly would take care of it. The national assembly need to have improved its reputation, honesty, and influence there, according to Hon. Sallah.
Hon. Sallah underlined that the best time to voice concerns over the procedure and the absence of consultation was during the bill’s second reading.
“You may accuse the executive of anything you want; anything might have been stated at that moment. However, to demonstrate that, let’s go on to the crucial phase of carrying out our duties for the Gambian people. According to the constitution, if it passes the second reading, they will move on to the committee stage. And here is where the scrutiny ought to have begun during that committee stage,” he said.
He went on to say that permitting the bill to proceed to the committee stage would have made it possible for participation and examination across the country.
Naturally, we would have examined the entire Constitution and forwarded it to them, as we did in 1997, just as I am doing now. It would have been done by political parties and thinkers. Leaders in religion would have done that. “Therefore, they would have prepared a report on our collective opinions regarding the content of the Constitution after scrutiny,” he stated.
The next step, Sallah said, would be the consideration stage, in which Assembly members would review and vote on the text, clause by clause.
According to Sallah, clause by clause, they will examine and vote until the very end, after which they will cast their votes and the three-quarter majority will approve. In the remaining six months, the IEC will prepare for a referendum, after which the public will be consulted and the discussion will continue. And we would have come to a national consensus as a result of that discussion. Why should we disagree on the text of the constitution if we are all Gambians, the country truly belongs to us, and we all want a constitution that serves its purpose? We ought to have been able to construct ideas. Indeed, it is the nation-building process.
Sallah framed the creation of a constitution as an essential component of nation-building in his conclusion.
“You are building the mindset of a people on how they are supposed to be governed. Nothing is more important to a nation than the constitution-making process. All of us have spoken with one voice to allow each to scrutinize, criticize, and come up with suggestions.”
