Politics

On February 13^th 2016, lawyers of the Common Law extraction in Cameroon shall converge in Buea for another conference. Of course top on the agenda will be to address the moves currently been taken by some overzealous administrative and judicial authorities to annihilate the common law in Cameroon. At this point, I cannot but jump in to attempt a proposal as to what should be on our minds during that conference. In that vein, I wish to remind my colleagues about the learned Barrister Chief Charles AchalekeTakuon the occasion of the society’s inaugural meeting in Bamenda on Jan 28 2012. On that day, Chief Taku in his keynote addresssaid “…some misguided and gullible political leaders miscomprehend unity (of the two Cameroons) with uniformity and see every facet of public life that promotes and protects freedom and a free society as a threat to their political power.For this reason, they evinced every effort to short-circuit and abort the development and survival of the common law system that has governed much of the free world for centuries. To attain this goal, they put in place a deliberate amorphous system so-called ‘harmonization’, whose purport is to create confusion, put … the common law system under constant threat, then destabilise, and impose a preconceived substitute with an enslaving agenda”. 

The common law, “… a system that guarantees judicial remedies like Habeas Corpus, Certiorari, Prohibition, Mandamus and made bail a right rather than a privilege, threatens executive lawlessness and dictatorship,” the erudite and eloquent Chief Taku continued.

At this juncture, the history of the sad and sorry union between the Cameroons comes to mind. Every true chronicler of the Cameroon situation remembers those institutions of Former West Cameroon… Powercam, Cameroon Bank, the West Cameroon Police Force, etc., amongst others that have been killed by the ‘other’ Cameroon. One thinks of how the peoples of English speaking extraction in this so-called union watch helplessly as their kith and kin are being reduced daily, to second-class citizens. Then I ask; will the Cameroon Anglophone Lawyer sit quiet and watch how the tool with which he is supposed to defend his clients, is being eroded and taken away from him? If the Cameroon Common Law Lawyer does not stand up against this, would he be able to stand up for his client? With what? The answers that ruminate to mind, send climes of chilly self-annihilating steps back home and propel me to join Chief Taku and the common law lawyers that are to converge in Bamenda to say an emphatic NO!

 I further suggest that the Cameroon common law lawyer must reclaim the ethical legacy of noble lawyers past and neophyte lawyers must be schooled in that wisdom and professional justification. I make bold to state that the current process of harmonization of laws between the civil law and the common law in Cameroon is an attempt at suppressing the latter, to the point of even killing it. As such, while in Bamenda or anywhere in the future, the Cameroon Anglophone lawyer should be able to stand and remain standing while hurling anathemas on the assimilating system which now comes under the disguised form of the so-called harmonisation. The Cameroon common law lawyer must not be like Chinua Achebe’s proverbial adult, who sits and watches the she goat suffer under the pains of child birth. He must be able to say that there is no way that laws and procedures that are to be used in two distinct legal systems could ever be harmonised and be expected to thrive as separate entities. No!

Nowhere in human history has the civil law and common law, be it in their adjectival or procedural forms, have been harmonised! It does not work like that. It has never. And so, shall it never work! There have been classic biases and atrocities committed against the common law system in this country. But lately, the perpetrators of these heinous crimes have executed a sudden somersault with apologies that the real intention is not to exterminate the common law system, but to harmonise the two systems in the now “one Cameroon’. The fact that this traditional adversarial image (as opposed to the French civil law system), still has great currency in the legal profession the world over, has much to do  with the equally traditional theory of law from which it draws its shape and justification. For better or for worse, the hallmark is found in their cultivation of rule-craft, -the ability to identify the extant rules of the legal system and apply them to particular situations. The central article of faith of this traditional positivism is that rules are the basic currency of legal transactions and their application can be performed in a professional and objective way.

In my book, the common law is an imposing (and should remain) an imposed structure that has considerable stability, that is operationally determinate in the guidance it extends to the trained lawyer and that is institutionally distinct from the more open-minded disputations around ideological politics. As such, the image of the lawyer-as-hired-hand embraces the idea that the common law in Cameroon, like everywhere in the world, has a life of its own and should neither be politically-myth-informed, nor influenced by governmental policy makers and (mis)managers.

In this sense, any practice that craves and expects professional recognition must be seen to take the common law seriously in the sense that it pursues clients’ interests through extant rules, procedures and values of law: overt politicisation is severely frowned at. Again, in my book, this is a proud unapologetic and defiant defence of the Rule of Law which must now become pax-Kamaruna. And if this must be, then it must be the face of the Cameroon Anglophone Lawyer. 

The common law lawyer in Cameroon today must cut a niche for himself. He must stand out clearly in exhibition of the notion of the lawyer as a civic campaigner. He must build a pyramid of honour, probity and humaneness and impose himself up there, especially in the face of the present condition of the peoples of English speaking extraction in this so called union of the two Cameroons. He must be a goad and a gadfly to his suffering kith and kin. The common law lawyer must speak out against bribery and corruption, stand for the down-trodden and defend his kindred who are now caught up in this quagmire of Quisling-Iscariots. (I have taken liberties here with the late Dr. Bate Besong of the ObassinjomWorrior fame). Oh yes, we must deny to be Heweit! Litigation and adjudication are much more value-laden and results-oriented than traditionalists suppose. Consequently, the common law lawyer must take an appropriate share of the responsibility for those values and results. At the very least, he must engage in the struggle to make the legal process the best that it can be for the benefit of those who live under its directives, particularly the disadvantaged and disenfranchised.

As much as lawyers are officers of the law, they are also agents of the people: they cannot afford to sit quiet in the face of such blatant rape being meted out with impunity and excruciating pain against their lot and institutions. With our present situation, the Cameroon common law lawyer cannot assume a non-committal position. He must be militant and assume a much more pedestrian approach in defence of the law. My take is that the Cameroon judicial system has much to emulate from the Canadian experience. Like Cameroon, Canada is both bilingual and bi-jural. While the civil law system, informed by the codified Napoleonic laws obtains in the Francophone region of Canada, the common law system obtains in Anglophone Canada. These two have co-existed ever since the Canadian Federation was founded.

None of the two systems has attempted to swallow or engulf the other! Both the Common law and the civil law thrive side-by-side, and so well in Canada. So why can it not be so in the Cameroons? The civil law and the common law are like equity and the law itself.  Professor Kisob I remember once said that they are like two streams that run through the same channel but their waters don’t mix. This is the sermon that the Cameroon Anglophone lawyer must preach ex-cathedra, to the powers that be! In July 1995, 16 French speaking countries in Africa ratified the OHADA Treaties. These treaties were to harmonize business law in Africa. Cameroon was amongst them. All of these countries have the civil law system as their system of law. The law stated that the working language of the OHADA was French. As expected, the Yaounde junta attempted to have this law operate in English speaking Cameroon, but the common law lawyers (from both the bench and the bar) stood like one man and said NO!They objected to the applicability of the OHADA as it was. Not long, English language was added as another working language of the said law. This was a eureka moment for the common law system in Cameroon. If the common law lawyer could force the English language on the French speaking countries of the sub-region, then it can stop the wanton rape now being done on its system of law practice. Yes we can.

 * Parts of this article were first published in The NewBroom Magazine. Its author, TANYI-MBIANYOR SAMUEL TABI is a Common Law Lawyer who read law in Toronto and Yaounde. A member of both the Cameroon and Canadian bar Associations, he is currently a research student at Walden University.

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Ngwa Bertrand

12.Feb.2016

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On February 13^th 2016, lawyers of the Common Law extraction in Cameroon shall converge in Buea for another conference. Of course top on the agenda will be to address the moves currently been taken by some overzealous administrative and judicial authorities to annihilate the common law in Cameroon. At this point, I cannot but jump in to attempt a proposal as to what should be on our minds during that conference. In that vein, I wish to remind my colleagues about the learned Barrister Chief Charles AchalekeTakuon the occasion of the society’s inaugural meeting in Bamenda on Jan 28 2012. On that day, Chief Taku in his keynote addresssaid “…some misguided and gullible political leaders miscomprehend unity (of the two Cameroons) with uniformity and see every facet of public life that promotes and protects freedom and a free society as a threat to their political power.For this reason, they evinced every effort to short-circuit and abort the development and survival of the common law system that has governed much of the free world for centuries. To attain this goal, they put in place a deliberate amorphous system so-called ‘harmonization’, whose purport is to create confusion, put … the common law system under constant threat, then destabilise, and impose a preconceived substitute with an enslaving agenda”. 

The common law, “… a system that guarantees judicial remedies like Habeas Corpus, Certiorari, Prohibition, Mandamus and made bail a right rather than a privilege, threatens executive lawlessness and dictatorship,” the erudite and eloquent Chief Taku continued.

At this juncture, the history of the sad and sorry union between the Cameroons comes to mind. Every true chronicler of the Cameroon situation remembers those institutions of Former West Cameroon… Powercam, Cameroon Bank, the West Cameroon Police Force, etc., amongst others that have been killed by the ‘other’ Cameroon. One thinks of how the peoples of English speaking extraction in this so-called union watch helplessly as their kith and kin are being reduced daily, to second-class citizens. Then I ask; will the Cameroon Anglophone Lawyer sit quiet and watch how the tool with which he is supposed to defend his clients, is being eroded and taken away from him? If the Cameroon Common Law Lawyer does not stand up against this, would he be able to stand up for his client? With what? The answers that ruminate to mind, send climes of chilly self-annihilating steps back home and propel me to join Chief Taku and the common law lawyers that are to converge in Bamenda to say an emphatic NO!

 I further suggest that the Cameroon common law lawyer must reclaim the ethical legacy of noble lawyers past and neophyte lawyers must be schooled in that wisdom and professional justification. I make bold to state that the current process of harmonization of laws between the civil law and the common law in Cameroon is an attempt at suppressing the latter, to the point of even killing it. As such, while in Bamenda or anywhere in the future, the Cameroon Anglophone lawyer should be able to stand and remain standing while hurling anathemas on the assimilating system which now comes under the disguised form of the so-called harmonisation. The Cameroon common law lawyer must not be like Chinua Achebe’s proverbial adult, who sits and watches the she goat suffer under the pains of child birth. He must be able to say that there is no way that laws and procedures that are to be used in two distinct legal systems could ever be harmonised and be expected to thrive as separate entities. No!

Nowhere in human history has the civil law and common law, be it in their adjectival or procedural forms, have been harmonised! It does not work like that. It has never. And so, shall it never work! There have been classic biases and atrocities committed against the common law system in this country. But lately, the perpetrators of these heinous crimes have executed a sudden somersault with apologies that the real intention is not to exterminate the common law system, but to harmonise the two systems in the now “one Cameroon’. The fact that this traditional adversarial image (as opposed to the French civil law system), still has great currency in the legal profession the world over, has much to do  with the equally traditional theory of law from which it draws its shape and justification. For better or for worse, the hallmark is found in their cultivation of rule-craft, -the ability to identify the extant rules of the legal system and apply them to particular situations. The central article of faith of this traditional positivism is that rules are the basic currency of legal transactions and their application can be performed in a professional and objective way.

In my book, the common law is an imposing (and should remain) an imposed structure that has considerable stability, that is operationally determinate in the guidance it extends to the trained lawyer and that is institutionally distinct from the more open-minded disputations around ideological politics. As such, the image of the lawyer-as-hired-hand embraces the idea that the common law in Cameroon, like everywhere in the world, has a life of its own and should neither be politically-myth-informed, nor influenced by governmental policy makers and (mis)managers.

In this sense, any practice that craves and expects professional recognition must be seen to take the common law seriously in the sense that it pursues clients’ interests through extant rules, procedures and values of law: overt politicisation is severely frowned at. Again, in my book, this is a proud unapologetic and defiant defence of the Rule of Law which must now become pax-Kamaruna. And if this must be, then it must be the face of the Cameroon Anglophone Lawyer. 

The common law lawyer in Cameroon today must cut a niche for himself. He must stand out clearly in exhibition of the notion of the lawyer as a civic campaigner. He must build a pyramid of honour, probity and humaneness and impose himself up there, especially in the face of the present condition of the peoples of English speaking extraction in this so called union of the two Cameroons. He must be a goad and a gadfly to his suffering kith and kin. The common law lawyer must speak out against bribery and corruption, stand for the down-trodden and defend his kindred who are now caught up in this quagmire of Quisling-Iscariots. (I have taken liberties here with the late Dr. Bate Besong of the ObassinjomWorrior fame). Oh yes, we must deny to be Heweit! Litigation and adjudication are much more value-laden and results-oriented than traditionalists suppose. Consequently, the common law lawyer must take an appropriate share of the responsibility for those values and results. At the very least, he must engage in the struggle to make the legal process the best that it can be for the benefit of those who live under its directives, particularly the disadvantaged and disenfranchised.

As much as lawyers are officers of the law, they are also agents of the people: they cannot afford to sit quiet in the face of such blatant rape being meted out with impunity and excruciating pain against their lot and institutions. With our present situation, the Cameroon common law lawyer cannot assume a non-committal position. He must be militant and assume a much more pedestrian approach in defence of the law. My take is that the Cameroon judicial system has much to emulate from the Canadian experience. Like Cameroon, Canada is both bilingual and bi-jural. While the civil law system, informed by the codified Napoleonic laws obtains in the Francophone region of Canada, the common law system obtains in Anglophone Canada. These two have co-existed ever since the Canadian Federation was founded.

None of the two systems has attempted to swallow or engulf the other! Both the Common law and the civil law thrive side-by-side, and so well in Canada. So why can it not be so in the Cameroons? The civil law and the common law are like equity and the law itself.  Professor Kisob I remember once said that they are like two streams that run through the same channel but their waters don’t mix. This is the sermon that the Cameroon Anglophone lawyer must preach ex-cathedra, to the powers that be! In July 1995, 16 French speaking countries in Africa ratified the OHADA Treaties. These treaties were to harmonize business law in Africa. Cameroon was amongst them. All of these countries have the civil law system as their system of law. The law stated that the working language of the OHADA was French. As expected, the Yaounde junta attempted to have this law operate in English speaking Cameroon, but the common law lawyers (from both the bench and the bar) stood like one man and said NO!They objected to the applicability of the OHADA as it was. Not long, English language was added as another working language of the said law. This was a eureka moment for the common law system in Cameroon. If the common law lawyer could force the English language on the French speaking countries of the sub-region, then it can stop the wanton rape now being done on its system of law practice. Yes we can.

 * Parts of this article were first published in The NewBroom Magazine. Its author, TANYI-MBIANYOR SAMUEL TABI is a Common Law Lawyer who read law in Toronto and Yaounde. A member of both the Cameroon and Canadian bar Associations, he is currently a research student at Walden University.

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

12.Feb.2016

Hits: 1888

President Biya has revealed to the youths that efforts over the past few years have started paying off despite the fact that government’s capacities to create jobs have been crippled by external factors related to the external environment and some domestic red tape. A beaming head of state noted that the role of the youth in economic development was one of the major concerns of his ruling CPDM party. He urged the entire nation to resolutely mobilize and support the numerous initiatives undertaken by young people in the country in diverse fields. Biya, 83 hinted that  the Yang Philemon Government should systematically and effectively continue setting up appropriate infrastructure, but also cleaning up and properly regulating this key sector in the interest of the national economy and the development of youth employment. President Biya added that public or private training institutions are called upon to fully play their role in identifying new trades. The Cameroonian dictator said large enterprises and other public and private entities should set the example by progressively carrying out their own digital switch over. 

In a speech described by many as empty, Mr Biya also noted that financial institutions definitely stand to benefit by developing specific programs to support youth-initiated projects in this new economy and that it is through such collective commitment that Cameroon will be able to rise to the challenge of digital transition. With age telling on him, President Paul Biya dabbled to defend his failed leadership saying that the agriculture and digital economic sectors requires continues effort which included stepping up the professionalization of secondary education. Mr Biya told the Cameroonian youth that his government has opened three Pilot Centers of Excellence in Douala, Limbe and Sangmelima. The projects that cost about 21 billion CFA francs, will provide retraining and upgrading skills for senior technicians and other skilled workers.

Biya who remained defiant on the failures already recorded by his 2035 Emergence Plan recalled the launching of an extensive industrialization program outlined on 31 December last year which he again observed should create many job opportunities. The youths were told to courageously plunge and become the agricultural entrepreneurs describing it as a noble and rewarding trade in the so-called real economy.

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

12.Feb.2016

Hits: 2596

President Biya has revealed to the youths that efforts over the past few years have started paying off despite the fact that government’s capacities to create jobs have been crippled by external factors related to the external environment and some domestic red tape. A beaming head of state noted that the role of the youth in economic development was one of the major concerns of his ruling CPDM party. He urged the entire nation to resolutely mobilize and support the numerous initiatives undertaken by young people in the country in diverse fields. Biya, 83 hinted that  the Yang Philemon Government should systematically and effectively continue setting up appropriate infrastructure, but also cleaning up and properly regulating this key sector in the interest of the national economy and the development of youth employment. President Biya added that public or private training institutions are called upon to fully play their role in identifying new trades. The Cameroonian dictator said large enterprises and other public and private entities should set the example by progressively carrying out their own digital switch over. 

In a speech described by many as empty, Mr Biya also noted that financial institutions definitely stand to benefit by developing specific programs to support youth-initiated projects in this new economy and that it is through such collective commitment that Cameroon will be able to rise to the challenge of digital transition. With age telling on him, President Paul Biya dabbled to defend his failed leadership saying that the agriculture and digital economic sectors requires continues effort which included stepping up the professionalization of secondary education. Mr Biya told the Cameroonian youth that his government has opened three Pilot Centers of Excellence in Douala, Limbe and Sangmelima. The projects that cost about 21 billion CFA francs, will provide retraining and upgrading skills for senior technicians and other skilled workers.

Biya who remained defiant on the failures already recorded by his 2035 Emergence Plan recalled the launching of an extensive industrialization program outlined on 31 December last year which he again observed should create many job opportunities. The youths were told to courageously plunge and become the agricultural entrepreneurs describing it as a noble and rewarding trade in the so-called real economy.

Details

Elangwe Pauline

12.Feb.2016

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Turkey has summoned the US envoy to the country over Washington’s assertion that Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) is not a terrorist group. Tuesday’s move by the Turkish foreign ministry followed remarks by US State Department spokesman John Kirby, ruling out the organization as a terrorist one. Ankara considers the group as an ally of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which it has been battling for months, but to the US, PYD is seen as part of the fight against the Daesh terrorists wreaking havoc in the region. Responding to a question regarding the difference between the two states, Kirby said Monday that "This is not a new concern, as I said, that the Turks have proffered. And we don't, as you know, recognize the PYD as a terrorist organization." 

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has previously hinted that military operations may be launched in Syria to tackle the YPG. Ankara has used the chance to fight Takfiris in neighboring Iraq to also attack PKK militants, who have fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. Ankara has reportedly provided support for militants operating inside Syria along with some other US allies, namely Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Daesh Takfiri, who have been wreaking havoc in Syria Iraq and miles further in Libya, were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government.

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Ngwa Bertrand

10.Feb.2016

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The Federal Republic of Germany seeks to assist Cameroon boost economic growth, youth employment, rural development, protect natural resources and diversify energy sources by improving on trade and business relations between both countries. This was reiterated recently at the National Assembly by a visiting delegation of the members of the German Parliament led by the President of the Parliamentary Commission for Economic Cooperation and Development, Mrs Dagmar Wöhrl, during a meeting with Senior Vice Speaker, Honourable Hilarion Etong. 

After the meeting, Dagmar Wöhrl hinted that the “fruitful discussions” aimed at seeking new avenues not only to strengthen trade and economic relations but also to upgrade relations between the two parliaments on the level of commissions and bilateral parliamentary friendship groups. The meeting also provided an opportunity for the guests to reaffirm Germany’s solidarity with Cameroon against the threat of terrorism.

The delegation included the President of the Parliamentary Commission for Economic Affairs and Energy, Dr. Peter Ramssauer who saw a multitude of options and great potential for strengthening relations especially in the domain of renewable energy which his country is progressively adopting to the detriment of nuclear and fossil energy. The German MP hailed historic ties between both countries as well as the speaking and learning of the German language by many Cameroonians. The delegation which was accompanied by German Ambassador to Cameroon, H.E. Holger Mahnicke, ends its five-day visit today February 5, 2016.

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Ngwa Bertrand

09.Feb.2016

Hits: 2649