Aminatta N’gum was born on June 7, 1953, in Harare, Zimbabwe, and is a Gambian national by marriage since 1981. She earned a B.A. Joint Honours in Law and Sociology from the University of Keele, the United Kingdom in 1978 and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in July 1979. She has been a member of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn since 1977. Aminatta received an LL.M in Public International Law with an International Criminal Law Specialisation from Leiden University, the Netherlands, in 2005.

Judge Aminatta N’gum served the Judiciary of The Gambia as a Magistrate from 1980 to 1990 and Master of the Supreme Court from 1990 to 1994. She then transitioned to Private Legal Practice from 1994 to 1998 and 2009 to 2010. Additionally, she was the first Judicial Secretary from 1998 to 1999 and was appointed Judge of the Gambian Court of Appeal from the High Court from 2010 to 2011. Beginning in 2012, Judge N’gum served as a Judge of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. During this period, she has actively participated in amending and finalizing the Draft Mechanism Rules of Procedure and Evidence as well as the Code of Professional Conduct for Mechanisms Judges. Prior to this position, Judge N’gum served as a Legal Officer at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) from 1999 to 2009. Ngum’s work in this capacity begun in Arusha, Tanzania, in the Court Management Section as Deputy Chief, and sometimes Officer-in-Charge. She was then reassigned as Head of the Appeals Support Unit in The Hague and subsequently to Arusha in the Defence Counsel and Detention Management Section as Deputy Chief and Head of Section and later Officer-in- Charge. She finally returned to the Court Management Section as a Legal Officer and Coordinator.

Judge N’gum has occupied other enviable positions including Assistant Editor for the 1994 Gambia Law Reports, Senior Counsel to the Commission of Inquiry into Land Administration (1994-1998), and Part-Time Law Lecturer at The Gambia Technical Training Institute. Further, she is recognized as a founding member of both the Soroptimist International of Banjul and The Gambia Women Finance Association.