The Gambia’s Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) has commenced its external consultations with Gambians living in Europe.

The consultations will run from 15 to 24 June covering five European countries, namely: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden.

The first consultation kicked off at the University of East London in United Kingdom on Saturday 15 June 2019.

In attendance at the consultation were Gambians from across the United Kingdom, Francis R. Blain, the Gambian ambassador to the United Kingdom, who led the opening ceremony and six commissioners of the CRC including the head, Justice Chernor Sulayman Jallow QC.

The other five members of the Commission will be travelling to the United States of America to hold consultations with Gambians living there.

In justifying the extra cost of these external consultations with Gambians living abroad, Justice Sulayman argued that the development of the new constitution was about legitimising the process, while at the same time ensuring inclusivity, participation and ownership of the process by Gambians.

The CRC wanted to ensure the contributions of as many Gambians as possible.

The one-day consultation was centred around 14 discussion points, which included Citizenship and Rights, Election, the Executive, Legislature, Judiciary, Public Finance and Public Service among others.

According to Justice Sulayman, the consultation was not to settle down on final answers but to gather the views and contributions of Gambians to inform the drafting of the new Constitution that will be put to the public in a referendum.

The draft constitution should be ready sometime in July 2020.

The discussions and debate were lively and passionate. Regarding the emotive issue of acquiring Gambian citizenship, the current constitution only allows citizenship by birth in the Gambia from a Gambian parent, by descent when the child is born outside the Gambia of a Gambia parent or by naturalisation/registration for foreigners.

A child born in the Gambia of foreign parents do not automatically qualify for Gambian citizenship until after 15 years of living in The Gambia.

For foreign nationals to naturalise for Gambian citizenship will have to first of all give up their nationality. In other words, Gambia does not allow foreign nationals to hold dual citizenship, however, a Gambian is allowed to have dual citizenship.

Another naturalisation route for foreign national is by marriage for seven years to a Gambian living in The Gambia.

The general consensus regarding citizenship from the consultation was for the new constitution to reduce the period of 15 years to 10 years and to allow children born in Gambia of foreign parents to acquire citizenship after 5 years of living in the country.

However, contributors generally agreed that foreign children should not be granted automatic citizenship when they are born in the Gambia.

Another passionate discussion point was the term limit of the presidency. A two-term limit of five years each term was the consensus. The current constitution of the ousted president Yahya Jammeh provides for no term limit as the president can run for office as many times as possible.

Regarding the death penalty, participants were divided with some arguing for it to be maintained in the new constitution as a deterrence, while others stressed that the death penalty has no place in the new constitution.

Gambians will not know whether their suggestions were accepted or not for inclusion into the new constitution until 2020 when the CRC would have finalised the draft.