{"id":81433,"date":"2025-07-05T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T09:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier"},"modified":"2025-07-05T09:16:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T09:16:15","slug":"minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier","title":{"rendered":"Minister Asserts Army Cannot Reinstate Dismissed Soldier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. <\/strong><\/span><b>Defence Minister Serign Modou Njie has told National Assembly Members that the high court judgement in favour of dismissed soldier Omar Sarjo cannot be executed.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Omar, who was wrongly labelled as the son of MFDC separatist leader Salif Sadio, was dismissed from the army in 2017 following an allegation that he was a foreigner who made a false declaration to enlist into the army. He challenged his dismissal and won at the Banjul High Court in 2022. Despite this ruling he is yet to be reinstated or compensated.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Defence Minister Njie told lawmakers that the court order was referred to the Ministry of Justice for legal opinion before any action could be taken.<\/p>\n<p>Njie returned to the parliament on Wednesday and was asked by Fon\u0303i Jarrol representative Kebba Tumanding Sanneh to explain reasons for the ministry\u2019s \u201cdeliberate refusal or the section of the Constitution relied upon defying the implementation of a high court judgement on the illegal dismissal of Omar Sarjo.\u201d Minister Njie, a former commander of the State Guards Battalion, said his ministry has received legal opinion from the Ministry of Justice advising that the high court judgement was \u201cdeclaratory in nature and not executory\u201d. He said as such, his ministry \u201ccannot act on a declaratory judgement\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>However, Latrikunda representative Yaya Sanyang who is also a barrister told the minister that a declaratory judgement means a right has been violated. \u201cSo when are you going to remedy this right that has been violated?\u201d Sanyang demanded to know.<\/p>\n<p>Minister Njie replied: \u201cAccording to legal opinion it cannot be enforced. This is a declaratory judgement that does not make any specific order or enforcement.\u201d The minister was also quizzed on his pledge some months ago to engage Omar Sarjo and his lawyer to resolve the issue but he alleged the soldier\u2019s lawyer was contacted on several occasions but never responded.<\/p>\n<p>Omar\u2019s lawyer Babucarr AMO Badjie told the Foroyaa in March that the chief of defence staff was \u201crefusing to engage\u201d with him on the matter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Gambia<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. Defence Minister Serign Modou Njie has told National Assembly Members that the high court judgement in favour of dismissed soldier Omar Sarjo cannot be executed. Omar, who was wrongly labelled as the son of MFDC separatist leader Salif Sadio, was dismissed from the army in 2017 following an allegation that he was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":81432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,12],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-81433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-policy","tag-gambia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Minister Asserts Army Cannot Reinstate Dismissed Soldier - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Defence Minister Serign Modou Njie has told National Assembly Members that the high court judgement in favour of dism ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Minister Asserts Army Cannot Reinstate Dismissed Soldier\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Defence Minister Serign Modou Njie has told National Assembly Members that the high court judgement in favour of dism ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-05T09:00:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-05T09:16:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/07\/sm_1751694282.39316.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Minister Asserts Army Cannot Reinstate Dismissed Soldier\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-05T09:00:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-05T09:16:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier\"},\"wordCount\":357,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/07\/sm_1751694282.39316.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Gambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/minister-asserts-army-cannot-reinstate-dismissed-soldier\",\"name\":\"Minister Asserts Army Cannot Reinstate Dismissed Soldier - 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