Pierre Sarr N'Jie

Pierre Sarr N'Jie
Chief Minister of the Gambia
In office 14 March 1961 – 12 June 1962
Governor	Edward Henry Windley
Preceded by	New position
Succeeded by	Dawda Jawara (as Prime Minister)
Leader of the Opposition
In office 1962–1972
President	Dawda Jawara
Minister for Education and Social Welfare
In office 1954 – January 1956
Governor	Percy Wyn-Harris
Leader of the United Party
In office 1952–1977
Member of the House of Representatives
In office 1966 – 1 July 1972
Constituency	Bathurst North
In office 1960–1966
Constituency	New Town East
Member of the Legislative Council from Bathurst
In office 1954–1960
Personal details
Born	Bathurst, the Gambia
Political party	United Party
Alma mater	King's College London Lincoln's Inn

Pierre Sarr N'Jie (17 July 1909 – 11 December 1993) was the Chief Minister of the Gambia from 14 March 1961 to 12 June 1962, the Gambia's first head of government following the declaration of self-rule in 1961. He was the leader of the United Party.

N'Jie was born in the Gambia in 1909 to a Wolof Muslim family. His father was a trader who was the nephew of the last king of Saloum, Semu Joof. N'Jie attended Saint Augustine's School in Bathurst and taught there before entering government employment in January 1929. He entered the Judicial Department as an assistant clerk of the courts in 1931, remaining there until July 1943 when he retired on a pension on medical grounds. In February 1943, he had been arrested and prosecuted on the charge of forging the signature of a plaintiff in a civil case. After the short trial, N'Jie was acquitted by the local magistrates due to a lack of evidence but was not given his old job back. The government later refused to pay him any health or reputational compensation, which he greatly resented.

Having failed to secure alternative employment in the Gambia, he left for the United Kingdom to study medicine at King's College London. However, he said "I only stayed there a short time. I was to be a doctor, but I don't like blood." In September 1943, he began legal training at Lincoln's Inn, one of the Inns of Court. In 1948, he became the first Wolof to be called to the bar. He returned to the Gambia in 1949 to set up his own firm in Bathurst. His main success was in conveyancing land between Africans and Lebanese. In September 1958, the deputy judge of the Supreme Court of the Gambia, Myles John Abbott, disbarred N'Jie from the legal profession for one of these deals. This decision was set aside by the West African Court of Appeal in June 1959, on the grounds that a deputy judge had no jurisdiction in the matter. In May 1961, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled that the deputy judge's initial decision should be upheld in a case known as The Attorney-General of the Gambia vs Pierre Sarr N'Jie.

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