The Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) has written to the Gambia Bar Association distancing itself from the African Bar Association (AfBA). PALU renewed its solidarity with its Gambian colleagues. AfBA members held a meeting with President Yahya Jammeh at State House. Jammeh used the meeting to rave and rant, vowing to remain in office despite losing to opposition coalition candidate Adama Barrow.
But PALU described AfBA as a “fraudulent organistion that does not represent anyone other than its few individual promoters. It has no known membership on the African continent,” Chief Executive Officer of PALU writes in a letter published below..
The President
Gambia Bar Association (GBA)
24 Independence Drive
Banjul, The Gambia
Dear President,
Re: Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) dissociates itself from the statements and actions taken by the African Bar Association (AfBA)
I have been instructed by the President and the Executive Committee (Board) of PALU to write to you to continue to express our solidarity with you at this sensitive time in your country, and also to dissociate ourselves from and condemn the Statements and actions apparently undertaken by the African Bar Association (AfBA). We stand by our own Statement on the situation in The Gambia, which we issued on 12th December 2016. We also support the positions taken by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) with regard to the Gambia. We look forward to full implementation of the Decisions of the ECOWAS Summit held in Abuja, Federal Republic of Nigeria this past Saturday, 17th December 2016. The AfBA position flies in the face of, and contradicts, the unanimous position of ECOWAS, AU and UN, and indeed of PALU. It flies in the face of, and contradicts, international law. It is, simply put, unlawful.
We highlight that we, as PALU, have nothing to do with AfBA. We consider AfBA to be a fraudulent organisation that does not represent anyone other than its few individual promoters. It has no known membership on the African continent. It does not speak for African lawyers or lawyers’ associations (Bar Associations and Law Societies). It has no known constituency. If it considered the Gambian Bar Association (GBA) to be its member association, there is no way it would have ‘parachuted’ directly into the State House of The Gambia, to meet the outgoing President of The Gambia, without consulting its member! We advise that the GBA treat that action with the contempt it deserves, but that you go ahead and inform the Gambian citizenry and the international community that you neither recognise AfBA nor does it represent the African legal profession. The PALU Board has directed me to do the same, and we will shortly put out a Statement in this regard.
Meanwhile, may I just recall our email to you of 13th November 2015 (attached herein for ease of reference) when we addressed this issue of AfBA.
Yours Sincerely,
Donald Deya
Chief Executive Officer, Pan African Lawyers’ Union (PALU)
cc The Secretary General
Gambia Bar Association (GBA)
24 Independence Drive
Banjul, The Gambia
Donald Deya
Chief Executive Officer, Pan African Lawyers’ Union (PALU)
No. 3, Jandu Road, Corridor Area
P. O. Box 6065,
Arusha, TANZANIA
Tel: +255 27 254 3192/4
Cell: +255 787 066 888
Fax: : +255 27 254 3195
E-mail: ddeya@lawyersofafrica.org; donald.deya@gmail.com
Ends
The so-called African Bar Association needs respect The will of The Gambia people. The masses have spoken and the outgoing president know he cannot change decision that have been clearly made by the Gambians. The Gambia and her people have gone through a lot hardship, humiliation and degradings under the outgoing president. If African Bar Association cared for human uplifting and truth let them leave our Gambia and her peace loving and caring people. I has been said that you all were given a large sum of dollars by the outgoing president to legitimise his unconstitutional rhetoric. We beg the AfBA in the name of GOD to quit
Very good move here by PALU. Thanks Donald Deya for expressing solidarity on the genuine establishment (PALU)’s behalf, with the Gambia Bar Association whose demonstrations recently have turned out statesmanly. Everything seems being take care of rightly at the right times by the right entities, in the small country’s struggle processes to restore democracy and rule of law in it.