According to the Minister, The Gambia’s commitments under international treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, place obligations on the state to respect the sanctity of life and work towards abolishing the death penalty.
He explained that in 2018, the President placed a memorandum on the death penalty and commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment.
“The death penalty has been repealed from the criminal code,” he said, explaining that its removal means courts can no longer impose death sentences.
“It is not provided for as a punishment under the Criminal Penalties Act,” he said, “therefore, nobody can be sentenced to death under our criminal law.”
However, Minister Jallow acknowledged that a provision for the death penalty remains in the Constitution. He said that while the government cannot completely remove it from the Constitution at this stage, it remains committed to putting the issue on the table.
The Minister said the country’s constitutional position dates back to 1997, when the Constitution gave the National Assembly 10 years to decide whether the death penalty should remain in the law.
That period passed without a decision being made, he said, adding that the debate over the death penalty remains a broader societal and criminological issue, with different views on whether it should be retained as a form of punishment.
The government’s position, however, is that the steps already taken demonstrate its commitment to becoming a rights-respecting democracy while pursuing the complete abolition of capital punishment.
