By Awa K Sanneh
Honorable Fafa E Mbai, former Gambian Minister of Justice and Attorney General, has told the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) that he advised against ex-president Yahya Jammeh’s decrees which he said resulted to his dismissal from his position.
Ex-president Jammeh who is now living in exile in Equatorial Guinea is believed to have had enacted at least 29 decrees throughout his 22-year rule, widely characterised both locally and internationally as ‘dictatorial’.
The top lawyer continuing his testimony at the TRRC, government-backed commission looking into human rights crimes occurred between 1994-2016.
“I disagree that I created these decrees. An Institution seen largely by members of the public but erroneously [sic],” he countered a question by the TRRC lead counsel Essa Faal.
“In my case, I strongly advised against all the decrees that I was aware of and considered it would be in violation of human rights. Let me tell you, I didn’t accept these decrees I went against them that’s why I didn’t last long with them [and] that’s why I was called the Human Rights Attorney General when members of the counsel including Jammeh himself used to called me ‘Uncle Human Rights’ that tells a story of my role at the time,” Lawyer Mbai said.
According to him, this was why he was called Human Rights Attorney General, adding “that’s why I became different.”
He went further “I said as the [then] chief government legal adviser I take full responsibility for the decrees that were enacted during the time that I was the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, but I said even if I accepted this, I said I advised against violations of human rights. All the decrees that I was aware of and consider it would be in violation of human rights.”