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Momodou
Denmark
11662 Posts |
 Posted - 18 Dec 2012 : 11:50:17
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Office of the Ombudsman is supposed to invistigate "all cases of mismanagement, abuse of office, maladministration, discrimination and injustice". What has the Ombudsman been doing ever since the estasblishment of the institution in 1999?
The Ombudsman should be the the eyes, the voice of the citizens and should look over the shoulders of the system but is he doing that?
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IS THE SYSTEM FUNCTIONAL?
Foroyaa Editorial: Published on Monday, 17 December 2012
Every modern civilised country must have a system which makes processes of governance and state administration consistent, constant, accessible and predictable. This ability to predict the outcome of actions to get redress for wrong perpetrated against a person is what gives such a person the confidence to resort to established measures or mechanisms to seek redress for miscarriage of Justice.
It is this confidence that efforts to seek redress will yield fruit which motivated the victims of the Mau Mau insurrection in Kenya to file a suit against the British state for injustices perpetrated during the colonial order. It is the same motivation that has compelled the victims of the terror campaign to be filing suits today for redress to their grievances.
Section 19 subsection 6 of The Constitution of the Gambia states; "any person who is unlawfully arrested or detained by any other person shall be entitled to compensation from that other person or from any other person or authority on whose behalf that other person was acting" .
It is obvious that no one should be detained for more than 72 hours without being taken to court. Hence anyone who is detained beyond 72 hours without court appearance is unlawfully detained and is entitled to compensation.
It goes without saying that any person who is detained for more than three hours without being told what one has done and allowed to see one's lawyer for legal counseling could be said to be subjected to arbitrary detention.
Section 21 further made abolition of torture and degrading inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment absolute by stating that "No person shall be subjected to torture, or inhuman degrading punishment or other treatment".
Jurisprudence has been enriched over the years by the realisation that confessions that are derived from torture and inhuman treatment are often very inaccurate and have too often led to miscarriage of justice.
This is why civil societies should also educate the public to know these laws so that people would be ready to resist any pain inflicted on them rather than be forced to admit what they have not done and be convicted because of torture.
A civilised state would prepare training programmes for its security personnel so that all of them would be guided by such constitutional provisions which should in fact be transformed into a training manual and code of conduct in the operations of the security agents.
Source: Foroyaa
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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