The chair of the Constitutional Review Commission has said that the commission would issue the first draft of the new constitution in June 2019.
Justice Sulayman Jallow stated this during a recent press conference held at the commission’s headquarters in Kotu.
“We expect to complete the public consultation including the Diaspora consultation by June of next year. We are hoping by July, August of next year we would be in the position to have drafted constitution for this country,” he said.
The commission mandated to review and draft a constitution would finish public consultation in December. If the document passes a referendum, it will make it the third constitution the country has had since independence in 1965.
The head of the commission noted that once his office concludes engaging the public in the new book would commence collating the ideas together for drafting.
According to him, his office would have to first agree on the feedback of the public and prepare draft instruction before submitting it to a technical committee on constitutional drafting.
However, Mr Jallow added that after collation of the public ideas, the public would be given a second chance to look at the constitution in term of their aspirations of what have been done and left out.
He added: “And once that is done is also part of our action plan we would make a first draft publicly available so that public has an second chance to look at the constitution in term of their aspirations and what have done and what have been left out.”
Meanwhile, the consultation has so far triggered a heated debate on citizenship, death penalty, Presidential qualification, Electoral reform among others.
