In an interview with The Point, Jobarteh expressed that the constitution is such a national document for which the cabinet does not have the legal basis to write. “What they can do is to facilitate a process that will enable citizens to come together and write; which they created in 2018 through the CRC Act which produced a draft constitution 2020,” he explained.
“To wait four years later and pick the draft of the people, edit and gazette it, I consider this illegal because they have no justification for it. I see it as an attempt to hijack the country and essentially handing over the country to the president and government. I consider their actions to be treasonable,” he added.
Outlining issues in the 2024 Gazetted Draft Constitution, he expressed: “When it comes to rights particularly personal liberty in the case of arrest and detention. The 1997 Constitution says when one is arrested within three hours they should be told the reason they are arrested in the language they understand and if they have to be detained it should not be more than 72 hours.”
“And in the 2020 draft, they reduced the 72 hours to 48 hours. However in the 2024 draft what is seen is; they first removed the three hours limit which is sending a critical signal. This can mean that one can be arrested for as long as a year without being told why and instead of maintaining the 48 hours in the 2020 draft, they put the 72 hours of the 1997.”
“Citizens own this country to the greatest capacity possible, and the state should ensure citizens enjoy freedom. Therefore, if one is arrested they should let you know the reason immediately they arrest you.”
On term limits, he said: “The provision they provided which is supposed to tell us start date of the term limits is not provided. This means they have left it to interpretation and this is what cause problem and has caused problems across Africa.
“To fail to tell us what, when the term limits start is a crisis in the making, because we will get to a point where the president will feel he has right to a term and citizens will think the opposite and it’s what created problems for other parts of Africa like Guinea and Senegal among others.”
On powers given to the president particularly the powers to appoint the likes of cabinet ministers, NAMs, heads of public bodies among others, where he can appoint on his own, Mr. Jobarteh observed: “Too much power has been handed to the president which undermines accountability, efficient administration of the state and overall good governance.”
“I am concerned about giving power to the president to remove nominated members at the NA. This undermines the principles of separation of powers because what this means is that the president can nominate and later remove anyone he likes.”
