INTRODUCTION

Of the countries analyzed in this volume, The Gambia maintains the most resistant and obstinate stance on death penalty abolition. Although The Gambia has a post-independence history of vibrant democracy, authoritarian rule after 1994 has led to eroding human rights standards. The criminal justice system has suffered. The Gambia abolished the death penalty in 1993, but the post-coup regime of Yayeh Jammeh reinstated the penalty and prior death sentences in 1995 in violation of international law. In 2012, The Gambia carried out nine executions to widespread global condemnation. As a result of the executions, The Gambia was the subject of two complaints at the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and now faces the prospect of a constitutional referendum to broaden the scope of capital punishment. Although the country currently appears unwilling to carry out more executions due to international pressure, Jammeh's dictatorship is volatile. Until a moratorium is announced as official policy, the country must be considered actively retentionist.

The Republic of The Gambia grew out of the British post of Bathurst, which was built in 1816 in present-day Banjul to control commerce on the Gambian River and to suppress the slave trade. The death penalty appears to have been known before the slave trade era among the Mande-speaking peoples of West Africa, which include the Mandinka, the largest ethnic group in The Gambia. The country's postcolonial stability was punctured in 1994 when the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) under Jammeh deposed President Dawda Jawara, the country's first republican head of state. “Until a military coup d’état in 1994 ushered in a two-year interregnum of military rule, The Gambia arguably held the record as the longest surviving multiparty democracy in Africa.” By 1994, however, public support for Jawara's ruling People's Progressive Party was eroding as persistent resource constraints and poor government performance led to a reduced standard of living and low levels of development.