Edi Faal’s academic and professional credentials are not the issue let’s argue with reason, Gambia

By Musa Bassadi Jawara

Supporters of Mr. Edi M.O. Faal keep producing academic and professional credentials. We hear about degrees, bars admitted, 44 years of practice, ICSID filings, and international consulting. Those credentials are not the issue. Since this nomination surfaced, not one supporter has brought forward his judicial philosophy. Not one has cited his books. Not one has produced his articles in major legal and judiciary journals. A résumé is not jurisprudence. The Supreme Court does not need a CV. It needs a mind, tested in writing, that Gambians can read before it governs them.

The Chief Justice is the intellectual command center of the Republic. He does not just assign cases. He writes the legal reasoning that will bind the executive, instruct Parliament, and teach citizens what their rights mean after 22 years of autocratic rule. That work is not learned on the job. It is shown in public, in print, before the oath. A comprehensive search of HeinOnline, Westlaw, SSRN, Google Scholar, WorldCat, The Gambia Law Reports, and major academic databases from 1982 to 2026 reveals no book, no law review article, no peer-reviewed paper, and no published lecture by Mr. Faal on Gambian constitutional, criminal, or commercial law. Not on society. Not on education. Not on family. Not on culture. Nothing.

This is the heart of the objection. Post-autocratic states do not fail for lack of lawyers. They fail for lack of jurisprudence. Chief Justice Hassan B. Jallow leaves a library. Justice and the Law in The Gambia and Journey for Justice are doctrine. They diagnose the pathology of Jammeh’s legal order and argue the cure. Mr. Faal would bring an empty shelf to a Court that must immediately rule on TRRC prosecutions, Janneh Commission assets, and term limit questions after the CRC draft collapsed. ICSID briefs are client advocacy filed behind closed doors. They create no constitutional doctrine for The Gambia and tell us nothing about how a man believes the 1997 Constitution should govern after systemic abuse.

The second disqualifier is time. Section 141(2)(b) of the 1997 Constitution, as amended 2017, sets mandatory retirement for a judge of the Superior Court at *75*. Mr. Faal is publicly reported to be over 70. His exact age is known to him and to the small circle lobbying for this appointment. That ambiguity is not a defense. It is a warning. Do you appoint a Chief Justice who may retire before the gavel comes down on the cases that will define our recovery? Come on Gambia. You cannot be serious. To borrow John McEnroe’s words, you cannot be serious if you install a CJ whose tenure may be shorter than the litigation he must lead.

Scholarship and time compound each other. A nominee who has published nothing on Gambian law would need years to build the doctrinal foundation this moment demands. The calendar may give him only a brief window. We would be gambling our constitutional reset on a tenure that could expire before the first volume of new jurisprudence is written. No recovering state staffs its highest court with an untested mind on a short clock. That is not transition. That is risk.

Supporters keep answering the wrong question. The question is not whether the man is learned. The question is whether he is qualified under Section 139(2) and fit for the work ahead. He has never sat on The Gambia’s Court of Appeal. He has no five-year appellate record abroad. His ICC and consulting work does not meet twelve years of qualifying practice before a High Court level forum. The Gambia Bar Association ruled unanimously that he is constitutionally barred. Any judgment he signs as Chief Justice would be voidable. Every case on executive power and stolen wealth would be litigated twice. Once on the merits, and again on his legitimacy.

This should be my last intervention because the facts are not moving. No supporter has produced his judicial philosophy. No supporter has shown his publications. No supporter has explained how a Chief Justice over 70 with mandatory retirement at 75 can see this recovery through. The Chief Justice post is not a golden handshake. It is not a retirement stint. It is not compensation for filing briefs for the state. It is the office that will rewrite Gambian law after two decades of decrees. Edi Faal’s academic and professional credentials are not the issue. Scholarship and time are. End this nomination.