Suppressing dissent: The Gambian reality
Posted: 19 April, 2016 Filed under: Satang Nabaneh | Tags: 1997 Constitution, Abubacarr Saidykhan, Amnesty International, Babucarr Ceesay, Ban Ki-moon, deprivation of life, detention, Ebrima Barry, Gambia Students Union (GAMSU), human rights violations, Human Rights Watch, immunity, insurrection, Lasana Jobarteh, law enforcement, mutiny, Ousainou Darboe, peaceful protests, President Jammeh, Public Order Act, right to protest, riot, rule of law, Solo Sandeng, The Gambia, United Democratic Party (UDP), United Nations, unlawful arrests, use of force 3 Comments
Author: Satang Nabaneh
Gambian Reporter to the Oxford Constitutions Online Project
The right to freedom of assembly as guaranteed by the 1997 Constitution includes the right to take part in peaceful demonstrations. However, people are deterred from organising and participating in such demonstrations. Section 18(4)(C) allows for the use of force and the deprivation of life in the ‘suppression of a riot, insurrection or mutiny’. This gives law enforcement officials with immunity when a person dies under circumstances in which reasonable force was used.
On Thursday, 14 April 2016, Mr. Solo Sandeng, National Organising Secretary and other members of the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) were arrested for leading a peaceful protest for electoral reforms and demanding for the resignation of President Jammeh. Two days after the arrest, senior members of the UDP, including the leader Ousainou Darboe, confirmed in a press conference the death of Solo Sandeng while in detention. Lawyer Darboe also stated that two detained female protesters were also in a coma following their arrest and alleged brutal torture by the security agents. Angered by the harsh treatment meted on the detainees, Darboe and a group of UPD stalwarts led began a protest march but were swiftly rounded up by Gambia’s security force and arrested. Eyewitnesses said the security agents fired tear gas at the crowd to disperse it.
To achieve transformation, Kenyan law needs to shun a hierarchy of sources
Posted: 17 August, 2015 Filed under: Humphrey Sipalla | Tags: constitutional law, dualism, echanistic jurisprudence, hierarchy of sources, ICCPR, ICJ, international law, ius cogens, Kenya, law enforcement, law reform, monism, transformation, transformative constitutionalism, Uhuru Park, use of force, Wangari Maathai 3 Comments
Author: Humphrey Sipalla
Freelance editor
It is opined by some in Kenya that the regime of former President Moi hardly broke constitutional law. For the most part, it rather, applying provisos and rigid compartmentalised thinking, bended and stretched it absurdly. There may be some truth to this. Previously on this platform, I opined that Kenyan society is prone to absolutes, in that instance, equating legitimate use of force with its disproportionate immoral use in “law enforcement”. It would seem that the legal fraternity too suffers its own peculiar version of this Kenyan tendency to be rigid.
At a conference on transformative constitutionalism, Prof. Ambreena Manji noted that for Kenya to realise the aims of its visionary transformative constitution, we needed a certain conversion of the soul, not just the mind, of the Kenyan jurist. At this same conference, the Chief Justice of Kenya, Dr Willy Mutunga lamented the old judiciary’s reliance of “mechanistic jurisprudence”. Such judicial policy led to the dismissal of the late Wangari Maathai’s (later Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) 1989 case against government plans to build a 60 storey building on Nairobi’s Uhuru Park as she did not show what injury would befall her were the environment to be spoilt. In 1989 too, the High Court held that the Bill of Rights could not be enforced as the Chief Justice had not issued enforcement rules as obligated by the Constitution. In 1993, again, presidential candidate, Kenneth Matiba’s election petition ground to a halt as he was unable to serve the sitting president with suit papers personally.
What we need to succeed in the fight against human trafficking
Posted: 25 February, 2015 Filed under: Monique Emser | Tags: counter-trafficking, criminal networks, criminal syndicates, Human Traf, human trafficking, intelligence, law enforcement, LexisNexis, migrant smuggling, migrants, proactive, reactive, trafficking networks, victim-led investigations Leave a comment
Author: Monique Emser
Research Associate, Department of Criminal and Medical Law, University of the Free State, South Africa
World Day of Social Justice – Ending human trafficking and forced labour: 20 February 2015
While there is evidence to suggest that some trafficking networks in South Africa are transnational, exhibiting professional and entrepreneurial business structures and methods of operation, reported cases of human trafficking in South Africa to date tend not to be affiliated with large, sophisticated criminal networks. Rather, they involve opportunistic individuals or families who are loosely coupled in temporary arrangements with criminal syndicates and co-conspirators in points of origin and transit.
Small-time traffickers and their co-conspirators often ‘piggy-back’ on existing criminal networks involved in migrant smuggling or drug trafficking, using established transportation routes to hide their activities. Highly organised trafficking networks, on the other hand, have evolved to such an extent that some even exhibit professional structures and employ legal companies as a front for their illegal activities.[1] It is this flexibility and mobility of organisation which makes trafficking networks so difficult to detect and dismantle.
Factors inhibiting the identification and investigation of human trafficking cases
Posted: 20 February, 2015 Filed under: Monique Emser | Tags: child trafficking, human trafficking, Human Trafficking Awareness Index report, law enforcement, LexisNexis, rule of law, South Africa, victim identification Leave a commentAuthor: Monique Emser
Research Associate, Department of Criminal and Medical Law, University of the Free State, South Africa
World Day of Social Justice – Ending human trafficking and forced labour: 20 February 2015
Law enforcement efforts have failed to keep pace with the mutable phenomenon of human trafficking despite the fact that it is regarded as the fastest growing and second most profitable criminal enterprise after drug trafficking.
The biggest challenge facing law enforcement in human trafficking cases is finding victims and their traffickers in the first place, since human trafficking involves the movement and concealment of victims.
Victims of human trafficking often do not self-identify as such. There are numerous reasons for this. Some victims may have consciously engaged in illicit activities, such as undocumented migration into the Republic or engaging in sex work. In such cases, ‘victims are unlikely to report their victimisation to the police or seek help from service providers.’[1] Where trafficking occurs within diaspora communities, self-identification and reporting to the police are even lower.
Others are too traumatised by their experiences and remain in denial. Distrust of law enforcement, fear of retaliation by traffickers, a lack of understanding of basic rights, are further inhibiting factors in relation to victim cooperation and investigation.
Human trafficking investigations and victim identification
Posted: 20 February, 2015 Filed under: Monique Emser | Tags: brothels, counter-trafficking, Doctor’s Case, forced labour, human trafficking, Human Trafficking Awareness Index report, labour trafficking, law enforcement, LexisNexis, traffickers, trafficking, victim assistance, World Day of Social Justice 1 CommentAuthor: Monique Emser
Research Associate, Department of Criminal and Medical Law, University of the Free State, South Africa
World Day of Social Justice – Ending human trafficking and forced labour: 20 February 2015
The identification and investigation of human trafficking cases is perhaps one of the most challenging and complex activities facing law enforcement and prosecution in South Africa, and the African region.
Despite new laws, widespread awareness-raising, the formation of specialised multi-agency task teams, and training of key public officials, little inroads have been made in combating and preventing trafficking. Indeed, the number of reported cases and victims assisted remain low, while the prevalence of trafficking appears to be increasing. Human trafficking remains a hidden crime which obviates simple solutions.
Comprehensive and socially inclusive counter-trafficking legislation which is victim-centred is a vital component for effective counter-trafficking governance. While South African anti-trafficking legislation was signed into law in 2013, it is yet to commence. Human trafficking remains partially criminalised. Prosecution of the crime, and victim assistance, is reliant on a transitional and inchoate legal and policy framework. The slow pace to bring the new law into force has several implications for law enforcement, prosecutors and service providers who are beginning to confront the problem at both national and local levels.
Reform needed in the laws of demonstrations in Africa
Posted: 2 April, 2012 Filed under: Christof Heyns | Tags: Africa, Arab-spring, demonstrations, human rights, Human Rights Council, law, law enforcement, United Nations, use of force 1 Comment
Author: Prof Christof Heyns
Professor of Human Rights Law; Co-director, Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa at the University of Pretoria; United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
Many lives have recently been lost in Africa, as in other parts of the world, when demonstrations have turned fatally violent. This has been clearly seen inthe countries of the so-called Arab Spring, but numerous Sub-Saharan countries – Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Malawi and South Africa come to mind – have also experienced violent and indeed deadly marches.
These demonstrations reveal the need to bring the legal and policy regimes that govern such expressions of popular opinion into line with human rights standards.
AfricLaw 