On 20 May 2024, a one-day consultation activity was held in Banjul, The Gambia aimed atassessing the provisions addressing electronic evidence, as part of the Evidence Bill. The workshop gathered more than 40 stakeholders from relevant institutions of The Gambia, including the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy (MOCDE), Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Gambia Police Force and Gambia Information and Communication Technology Agency.
The support to the consultation process, provided by the GLACY-e project, was requested by the national authorities following the desk study of the legislation that was prepared in 2023. The desk study took into consideration international best practices and experience in assessing the electronic evidence legislation of other countries.
Hence, a one-day internal meeting was organised with the drafting team responsible to elaborate the final text of the evidence Bill. As a result of this work, the working group integrated the necessary changes in alignment with inputs received and existing legislative framework.
On 22 May, a validation workshop was organised to discuss and further validate the suggested changes to the Evidence Bill. A key conclusion of this validation workshop was that existing legal provisions in The Gambia related to electronic evidence are rather limited and need a complete review to allow for the admissibility of evidence in electronic form and aspects during trials.
On this occasion the national authorities have affirmed their strong commitment to updating the Electronic Evidence Bill and align it with proposals and amendments put forward by the Council of Europe. Additionally, they emphasise the importance of ongoing capacity building initiatives and have committed to allocating adequate budgets for such programs throughout the year.
Cybercrime Programme Office (C-PROC)
Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention)