{"id":94292,"date":"2026-02-17T18:04:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/senior-counsel-darboe-critiques-underfunded-judiciary"},"modified":"2026-02-17T18:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:37:09","slug":"senior-counsel-darboe-critiques-underfunded-judiciary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/senior-counsel-darboe-critiques-underfunded-judiciary","title":{"rendered":"Senior Counsel Darboe Critiques Underfunded Judiciary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ap-article-header-tag\"> <strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. <\/strong> <\/span><b>A senior Gambian lawyer and politician, Lamin J. Darboe, said the country\u2019s mounting court backlog is largely the result of an under-resourced judiciary, arguing that chronic shortages of personnel and equipment have left the system unable to keep pace with rising caseloads.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Speaking in an interview with Kerr Fatou, Mr. Darboe acknowledged that delays in the courts stem from multiple factors but said inadequate funding and staffing remain the most significant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe judiciary is an arm of government,\u201d he said. \u201cIt should not be treated like the departments of education or health. It is a constitutional arm of government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Darboe argued that the justice system should be provided with sufficient resources to recruit the judges, magistrates, and support staff necessary to function effectively. Without that support, he said, structural deficiencies would continue to undermine access to justice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is a problem,\u201d he added. \u201cThose structural issues fit into the larger problem of governance in the country\u2014not governance on the part of the judiciary, but governance overall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He maintained that the judiciary should not be forced to lobby for basic necessities, saying that justified requests\u2014whether for electronic equipment, additional judges and magistrates, or Islamic court officials\u2014should be met as a matter of course.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the segments that go into making the judiciary an efficient arm of government,\u201d Mr. Darboe said, \u201cit should have all of those.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-article-footer-note\">Find more news and analyses on <span class=\"ap-highlight-country\">Gambia<\/span> on the <span class=\"ap-highlight-brand\">Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. A senior Gambian lawyer and politician, Lamin J. Darboe, said the country\u2019s mounting court backlog is largely the result of an under-resourced judiciary, arguing that chronic shortages of personnel and equipment have left the system unable to keep pace with rising caseloads. Speaking in an interview with Kerr Fatou, Mr. Darboe acknowledged [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":94291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-94292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","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>Senior Counsel Darboe Critiques Underfunded Judiciary - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-article-header-tag&quot;&gt; Africa-Press - Gambia. 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