{"id":31277,"date":"2016-12-22T02:27:13","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T02:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/gambia-s-top-court-adjourns-election-case-until\/"},"modified":"2016-12-22T02:27:07","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T02:27:07","slug":"gambia-s-top-court-adjourns-election-case-until","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/gambia-s-top-court-adjourns-election-case-until\/","title":{"rendered":"Gambia’s top court adjourns election case until Jan 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The Gambia’s top court on Wednesday said it was adjourning until January 10 a case filed by strongman Yahya Jammeh, who is seeking to annul the results of the country’s presidential elections.}<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court, presided by Nigerian-born Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle, ordered the adjournment because the chief defendant \u2014 the country’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) \u2014 had not been summoned to attend.<\/p>\n

Jammeh, in power for 22 years, was defeated by opposition candidate Adama Barrow in the December 1 poll.<\/p>\n

Barrow’s inauguration is due to take place on January 19.<\/p>\n

Jammeh initially accepted the result but then reversed position a week later, stoking international concerns about the future of the tiny West African country.<\/p>\n

His complaint to the court is about alleged irregularities in the ballot count by the IEC and charges that in one region his supporters were intimidated.<\/p>\n

Jammeh’s lawyer, Edward Gomez, informed the court that the IEC had not been served with a summons by Jammeh, the plaintiff.<\/p>\n

As a result, Gomez argued, it was in the interest of justice to give time for the IEC to receive the papers requiring it to attend.<\/p>\n

“In view of the case that the Independent Electoral Commission is not served, I hereby order that the case is adjourned till 10 January,” Judge Fagbenle announced.<\/p>\n

Gomez told reporters afterwards: “Going to court is a right and is a process, and nobody should deny a party that right.<\/p>\n

“That is all we are saying and at the end of the day it is the ruling of the court that matters. And I believe we will all abide by it and respect it.”<\/p>\n

Experts say Jammeh has bought time for his bid to stay in office by taking his appeal to a court that has lain dormant since May 2015 and whose judges had been fired under Jammeh’s orders save Fagbenle.<\/p>\n

Court sources said six foreign judges, excluding Fagbenle, have now been appointed by Jammeh to serve on the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Out of the total seven judges, five would hear the petition. If a review of the decision is sought by one of the parties, the case would then be considered by the full seven-member panel, the sources said.<\/p>\n

\"Yahya<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The Gambia’s top court on Wednesday said it was adjourning until January 10 a case filed by strongman Yahya Jammeh, who is seeking to annul the results of the country’s presidential elections.} The Supreme Court, presided by Nigerian-born Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle, ordered the adjournment because the chief defendant \u2014 the country’s Independent Electoral Commission […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31277"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31277"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}