Still on the review of the Explanatory Notes to the Barrow Papers 2024…
The deletions, additions and modifications made to the provisions of the 2020 Draft Constitution severely lower the bar for democratic governance and human rights. While immense powers have been bestowed on the President and public institutions at the same time necessary checks and balances were curtailed as major fundamental rights and freedoms were taken away. This means significant reductions in state obligations thereby limiting their duty to protect and fulfil human rights, hence the creation of an autocratic dispensation.
For example, the explanation provided for the removal of free secondary education on the basis that the Government does not have enough resources is the most outrageous. If the Government can buy a vehicle for D12 million just to carry a minister from home to office, how can it justify that it does not have money to provide free secondary education? One only needs to look at the various Auditor General’s reports or Janneh Commission Report to see how public wealth is being pillaged by public officials, yet the Government now says they do not have enough resources!
The most urgent and necessary investment any government should make is in the education of its citizens. Every advanced society in history has prioritized education as the most consequential investment because the present and future of society depend on it. Thus, to disregard secondary education, which is a critical bridge between primary to tertiary education, is to abandon the very survival and development of citizens and country.
The Barrow Papers 2024 also deleted the entire Section 65 of the 2020 Draft dealing with consumer protection with the explanation that there is already a “Consumer Protection Act and an established Commission to enforce consumer rights”. Constitutionalizing consumer rights only serves to strengthen both the Act and the commission. There are several laws and established institutions which are also constitutionalized such as elections and IEC hence the explanation given for the deletion of consumer protection is frivolous.
The 2020 Draft provides that a state of emergency can be extended by parliament for 60 days. But the Barrow Papers pushed it up to 90 days just as it is in the 1997 Constitution without providing any explanation. A state of emergency is a difficult situation where human rights are under severe threats. Hence a democratic state is interested in limiting the extension of a state of emergency to protect rights. Since there is the possibility of periodic extensions, the shorter the extension the better as it provides for greater protection of rights, and accountability of the state.
Furthermore, to expose how Barrow Papers is not interested in the protection of rights, it has removed ‘forced labour’ from the list of non-derogable rights that should not be limited or taken away but to be protected in full even during a state of emergency. There are a set of rights which are non-derogable in international law even during a state of emergency. Forced labour is one of them which the Barrow Papers now removed.
Check out for Part 3
By Madi Jorbateh