The Judicial Secretary, Landing Sanneh yesterday confirmed to The Standard that Justice Ali Nawaz Chowhan was dismissed and Fagbenle is now appointed to replace him. “He (Chowhan) is no more with us. His contract has been terminated. Fagbenle is now the chief justice,” Mr Sanneh said.
Ali Nawaz Chowhan was officially sworn in as the chief justice of The Gambia on March 6, 2014. Before coming to The Gambia, Justice Ali Nawaz Chowhan served as a consultant on legal affairs, administrative law and international law for the President of Pakistan. Justice Chowhan worked for The Hague, an alternate chairman of the UNESCO appeal board, and a visiting professor of law, and president of Punjab University Society of International Law. He was elected international judge of the United Nations, by the UN General Assembly, and worked from 2006 to 2009 for the UN at The Hague in The Netherlands.
Meanwhile, the new chief justice, Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle is a Nigerian who had once worked as the Director of Public Prosecutions and a Court of Appeal judge. He had also served as acting chief justice of The Gambia and later became the president of the Gambia Court of Appeal. He is expected to put his years of experience in public service to good use in re-engineering, repositioning and re-invigorating the judiciary for present and future challenges.
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