Justice Sulayman Jallow, the chairman of the Constitutional Review Commission has said on Friday December 21, 2018; that the first draft of the Constitution would be in June 2019.
He made the announcement at a press conference held at its headquarters in Kotu that aimed to update issues of the Commission’s progress so far.
The commission mandated to review and draft the Constitution for the country is about to conclude the first phase of the National consultation about the New Constitution.
Mr. Jallow said: “We expect to complete the public consultation including the Diaspora consultation by June in next year. We are hoping by July and August of the same year, we would be in the position to have drafted Constitution for this country.”
He then said that immediately his office finishes the public consultation, they would now commence on the process of putting the ideas together.
Once this constitution is done, it will serve as third-constitution of the Tiny West African country since its independent in 1965.
According to him, after the draft of the first document, his office would have to first agree on the feedback of the public and prepare the draft instruction before summiting it to a technical committee on constitutional drafting.
This he added would followed by an action plan of his office which the public would be given second chance to look at the Constitution in term of their aspirations of what have been done and left out.
He reiterated that: “once that is done, it is also part of our action plan to make a first draft publicly available so that the public would have a second chance to look at the Constitution in term of their aspirations of what have done and left out.”
So far the consultation has triggered a heated debate on Citizenship, Death penalty, Presidential qualification, Electoral Reform among others.
Author: Adama Makasuba
