Gambia’s top court adjourns Jammeh’s poll challenge

African judges due to help Gambia’s supreme court hear a challenge by President Yahya Jammeh’s electoral defeat last December failed to show up on Tuesday, forcing the chief justice to adjourn the session.

Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle delayed the hearing until Jan. 16, meaning the court will hear the challenge filed by Jammeh’s ruling APRC party only two days before the end of the long-ruling president’s mandate.

Legal sources said the foreign judges named to the court have not yet arrived in the West African country.

“No to cheating,” the crowd chanted, echoing Jammeh’s speech rejecting the poll outcome.

The legal challenge has shone a rare light on the idiosyncrasies of Gambia’s legal system, which opponents say has long been manipulated by Jammeh.

The supreme court has not sat in over a year, partly because would-be judges are too afraid of being confronted with unpredictable charges themselves. Two chief justices have been dismissed since 2013, one of them being arrested and jailed.

Because of this, the court hired four foreign judges from Nigeria and Sierra Leone to hear the appeal. But the absence on Tuesday of these “mercenary judges”, as the opposition calls them, raised questions about that option as well.

A document seen by Reuters and signed by Nigeria’s acting chief justice said that the timing of the extraordinary January session was “unfavourable”. Gambia’s supreme court normally sits in May and November.