The Price of Justice: How The Gambia’s Transitional Justice Process Enriched the System While Victims Were Left Behind

By Alagi Yorro Jallow

Transitional justice in was born out of deep national trauma and widespread hope for accountability after the 22-year rule of former President . The process was intended to confront a painful history marked by torture, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, economic plunder, and the erosion of democratic institutions. Gambians were promised truth, justice, reparations, and institutional reform as part of a national healing process.

Seven years later, however, critics argue that the transitional justice process has disproportionately benefited the system and its administrators rather than the victims whose suffering gave rise to the initiative. Lawyers, consultants, administrators, and justice-sector elites have reportedly absorbed the largest share of available resources, while many victims continue to struggle for adequate compensation, medical care, and psychological support.

Concerns over financial priorities first gained public attention during the prosecution of former National Intelligence Agency officers accused in the torture and killing of opposition activist . In 2019, former Attorney General disclosed that the government paid GMD 51 million to a private law firm led by lawyer to handle the prosecution.

The amount drew criticism in a country where many victims of state abuses reportedly remain unable to afford medical treatment for injuries sustained during the former regime. Observers noted that the legal fees exceeded the reparations initially distributed to hundreds of victims through the and rivaled the annual budgets of some government ministries.

Questions have also been raised regarding the financial efficiency of the , established to investigate the financial activities of the former president and his associates. Official disclosures indicated that the Commission spent approximately GMD 50.9 million on operations, salaries, and administrative expenses while recovering about GMD 67.8 million from seized assets, bank accounts, tractors, and properties.

Critics argue that although substantial assets were recovered, little of the money directly benefited victims of economic abuses under the previous administration. Instead, much of the expenditure reportedly went toward operational and legal costs associated with the Commission itself.

The most visible component of the transitional justice process was the , funded by the Gambian government and international partners including the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund, the European Union, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and . The Commission employed commissioners, investigators, legal teams, psychosocial support staff, media personnel, and administrators in what became one of the country’s largest post-dictatorship institutional projects.

Despite the scale of funding and operations, critics contend that only a small fraction of transitional justice spending reached victims directly. Reparations payments reportedly ranged from D50,000 to D100,000 for some victims, while others received nothing at all. Victims of torture, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, witch hunts, economic persecution, and forced exile continue to demand broader support and long-term rehabilitation.

Further controversy surrounds the management of assets recovered from . A report by the National Assembly’s Special Select Committee indicated that more than GMD 1 billion, in addition to over USD 2 million and other foreign currency holdings, had been recovered. Yet government officials have repeatedly cited financial constraints in implementing prosecutions, reparations, and institutional reforms.

The apparent contradiction has fueled calls for greater transparency and public accountability regarding recovered assets and their allocation. Victims’ groups and civil society organizations continue to demand detailed accounting of all recovered funds and expenditures linked to the transitional justice process.

Concerns have also emerged over the expansion of what critics describe as a growing “justice bureaucracy.” The Special Prosecutor’s Office Act, 2024, establishes a Special Prosecutor’s Office with multiple departments, including management and coordination, victims and witness support, legal and policy, outreach and communications, alongside other administrative units.

Supporters argue that such structures are necessary to ensure credible prosecutions and institutional accountability. Critics, however, fear the new offices may further increase administrative spending while victims continue to face limited access to healthcare, trauma counseling, education support, and economic rehabilitation.

For many observers, the central question remains whether the transitional justice process has genuinely restored victims and strengthened national healing, or whether it has become overly institutionalized and disconnected from the people it was designed to serve.

Critics maintain that transitional justice should ultimately be measured not by the number of commissions established, reports produced, workshops held, or offices created, but by whether victims receive meaningful justice, perpetrators are held accountable, institutions are reformed, and the nation moves toward reconciliation.

They argue that owes victims more than symbolic gestures and public ceremonies. According to this view, victims deserve transparency, dignity, meaningful reparations, and a justice process that prioritizes their suffering over bureaucratic expansion.

As debate over the country’s transitional justice agenda continues, pressure is mounting on authorities to ensure that victims remain at the center of the process and that public confidence in accountability mechanisms is restored.

Sources: Ministry of Justice briefings and disclosures (2019), Government White Paper on the Janneh Commission Report (2019), TRRC financial reports (2018–2021), National Assembly Special Select Committee Report on Jammeh Assets (2022).