Banjul, the Gambia – It is still early when Magistrate Muhammed Krubally arrives at the Banjul Magistrates’ Court. Before the first case, his clerk goes over the day’s proceedings, running through the files and making sure everything is in place. Krubally listens, asks questions, and prepares to preside.
Then he enters a packed courtroom, where lawyers, witnesses and relatives have gathered for a criminal case. Krubally cannot see the people before him, but he can hear them. Papers move across the room.
At his desk, his computer speaks back to him. Krubally uses JAWS, or Job Access With Speech, a screen reader that allows him to navigate his computer and read documents and judgements. He also uses AI-enabled smart glasses to access information and carry out tasks independently.
But technology is only part of how he works. He listens for voices, remembers details and follows the rhythm of proceedings, building a picture of the courtroom through sound. When necessary, he relies on his clerk.
At 41, Krubally says he has presided over more than 1,000 civil and criminal cases since joining the bench. In 2016, he became the Gambia’s first visually impaired magistrate. The Gambia Organisation of the Visually Impaired (GOVI) identifies him as the country’s first person with a visual impairment to hold the position.
For Krubally, this is not an experiment in what a visually impaired person might be capable of doing. Long before he took his place on the bench, Krubally grew up in a village in the Gambia’s Central River Region, the second of nine children. From an early age, he wanted to become a lawyer.
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