By Ensa AB Ceesay
Command responsibility, or superior responsibility, is a doctrine in international law that holds military commanders and civilian leaders criminally liable for crimes committed by their subordinates if they knew or should have known about the illegal acts and failed to prevent or punish them. This doctrine ensures accountability for inaction.
Key elements of command responsibility:
Superior-subordinate relationship: A formal or functional chain of command must be in place.
Knowledge: The commander had actual knowledge or possessed information that enabled them to conclude that subordinates were committing or about to commit crimes.
Failure to act: The commander failed to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent, stop, or punish the criminal acts.
Core aspects: Accountability for Omission: This doctrine is not strict liability; rather, it is responsibility for failing to act, rather than for the subordinate’s crime directly.
Applicability: It applies to both international and non-international armed conflicts.
Prevent and repress: Commanders must not only prevent crimes before they occur but also punish offenders after they occur or refer them to the appropriate authorities.
This doctrine, established in customary law and codified in the Geneva Conventions, ensures that those in positions of authority cannot avoid liability for illegal acts committed by their troops.
The police have a noble responsibility to act guided by patriotism, maintain law and order, respect the law they enforce, and protect the lives and property of their citizens. To sum it up, the police have not learned much from the Janneh Commission and the TRRC, both of which were set up to abandon bad practices and focus on best practices and standards in policing.
It’s grossly shameful to witness President Barrow being surrounded by unwise people who prioritise their own interests over the country’s and the president’s life after the presidency. The Gambia is in a dictatorship with numerous human rights violations, flouting the basic tenets of democracy and the rule of law.
This is indeed very concerning, and the police force, with close to 400 graduates, should place the right personnel in the right positions to say no to illegal orders and focus on real policing. How shameful for our uniformed men and the Barrow hegemony. Laws are supreme, and the police should not be the first to violate them just because they have the arsenal and government backing to subjugate citizens.
These were the same trends we fought against during the dictatorship of ex-despot Yahya Jammeh’s era, with candidate Adama Barrow in 2016. The question now arises: Does Adama Barrow feel ashamed of the innuendos, bad governance, police brutality, and disregard for the rule of law that he once admonished?
Adama Barrow seems to love all that is happening and takes pride in not making things right. Barrow’s inaction is sufficient to prosecute him and his hegemonic regime under the doctrine of command responsibility.
In the meantime, court orders are final and sacrosanct in our constitution, and it’s shameful for both the police and the Barrow hegemony to disrespect them. Gross shamelessness indeed.
To those in uniform, especially the police: I wore the same uniform before you, but I never misbehaved nor violated fundamental human rights or the dignity of people. You’re our family, but nothing has changed in the security sector reforms, and I’m utterly ashamed, petrified, and dumbfounded by the value of police graduates.
Accountability should start with the police force for Gross incompetence and should result in them losing their jobs to restore sanity in the force. Enough of this madness that has derailed our democratic gains. Was this the meaning of our change?.
