President Adama Barrow says he won’t interfere with the judiciary and pledges an independent judiciary free from executive meddling.

The president made this pledge during the opening of the 2019 Legal Year in Banjul on Sunday.

Barrow said his administration had broken free from his predecessor’s intolerable practice of sacking Judicial officers without any just cause. He added that no judicial officer had been arbitrarily dismissed since he assumed office.

He made mention of the appointments of human rights lawyers into the upper echelons of the judiciary as well as the reconstitution of the Supreme Court after a three-year break, as “testaments of respect for the third arm of government.”

The Chief Justice, Hassan B. Jallow, said the judiciary was free and independent under the current government.

“You have lived up to your assurance of no interference in the judiciary both in public and private.”

The pomp ceremony was attended by judges and lawyers to mark the start of the legal year which commences at the beginning of February. The legal year, which is celebrated in all common law jurisdictions and dates back to the Middle Ages in England, is the calendar during which the judges sit in court.