The sad part of this dismal legislative assimilation is that nothing better has been brought to replace our cherished internationally recognized system. To cite just a few examples,

The sad part of this dismal legislative assimilation is that nothing better has been brought to replace our cherished internationally recognized system. To cite just a few examples,

                                                                                    i.        the New Cameroon Criminal Procedure Code falsely propagated as 90% Anglo-Saxon, abrogates the application of the Evidence Ordinance of ___Sections and replaces it with very general provisions of just 30 Sections;

                                                                                  ii.        The Insurance Law of Cameroon that is applied within the common law jurisdiction is the “CODE CIMA” which is a French text and by all standards protects the Insurance companies which sponsored it and the properties of the few rich  and powerful as opposed to the FATAL ACCIDENTS ACT that was being applied in the common law jurisdiction of Cameroon before The “CODE CIMA” was illegally imposed  in the jurisdiction with constructive abrogation of the FATAL ACCIDENTS ACT;

                                                                                iii.        Cameroons current Land Legislation completely ignores the legislation of West Cameroon and has robbed the peoples of the common law jurisdiction of certainty of laws relating to land and replaced them with a very unstable and unreliable body of legislation that lends itself too readily to insecurity of land rights compounded by its vulnerability to corrupt practices in the processes for securing land rights whether they be administrative or judicial channels.

                                                                                iv.        The Nationality Code makes no pretenc e of Southern/West, Cameroonians being “a no people”.

Another problematic with the civil laws that have been used to contemptuously abrogate common law legislation is that by introduction of inhibiting court fees and charges access to justice has been gravely reduced for the poor. In fact justice has been reduced to an expensive commodity which can only be afforded by the rich and powerful. To circumvent the high court fees and charges barriers to justice, corruption in the administration of justice has thriven very highly with the consequential lowering of integrity of justice.

From the foregoing tip of the iceberg of characteristic contempt of common law and it’s legislation that were inherited in Southern Cameroons and later West Cameroon, the unavoidable conclusion is that the government of “La Republique du Cameroun” whether through their legislature or the judiciary is blandly contemptuous of the common law system.

Curiously, this contemptuous attitude which is propagated with a new meaning of “Harmonization” to the effect that Common Law is bad and Civil law is good so to harmonize between Common Law and civil Law, the best thing is replacement of Common law with civil laws.

d.  Whether or not subtle subjugation of Legal Practitioners and litigants within the common law jurisdiction(s) of Cameroon has any legal or legitimate basis?

It is trite knowledge that the legality and legitimacy of laws depend not on policy speeches of politicians but on the fundamental law or better still, the Constitution of the land. Given that there has never been any legal act of state(s) succession or union between “La Republique du Cameroon” and Southern Cameroons later called West Cameroon, any legislation by a legislature other than West Cameroon Parliament or otherwise inherited under the Southern Cameroons Constitutional Order-in-Council is a nullity, for want of legal foundation upon which to anchor.

The State terrorism by use of force to intimidate and subjugate the peoples of Southern Cameroons followed by introduction of laws of “La Republique du Cameroun’s” civil law system within the common law jurisdiction does not per se and simplicita clothe those laws with legality or legitimacy.

Consequent on the foregoing reasoning, the issue under review cannot be answered other than in the negative. It is therefore urged upon the government of “La Republique du Cameroun” to follow very strictly the advice of the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights in the decision on Communication 266/2003 Dr. Ngwang Gumne & Others versus “La Repblique du Cameroun” over which “La Republique du Cameroun has been playing a mixture of ostrich and unproductive game of the arrogance of a conqueror.

Let the principles of legality, state succession, anti-colonization, and abhorrence of use of force, in both international relations and law that governs the United Nations and the African Union both of which international organizations “La Republique du Cameroun” belongs to, be respected by “La Republique du Cameroon particularly as concerns Law formation, Law Review and Reform vis-à-vis the Common Law in Cameroon.

e.   Whether or not financing of the Judiciary in Cameroon discriminates against the common law jurisdiction?

One of the eyesores of the constructed dilapidation of Common Law in Cameroon is the underfinancing of the infrastructures and personnel of the Judiciary in the Common Law jurisdiction of Cameroon.

As concerns infrastructure, most of the court houses in the common law jurisdiction are either colonial buildings that have lost their capacity to accommodate the realities of today. The offices of Judges and Magistrates are not very different from slightly improved prison cells. The material conditions of work in general are to put it generously are merely proximate.

Even though the running budget of courts are not matters of public consumption, the practice of “illegal court charges” like Locus Fees and more betray the obvious fact that there is not sufficient money allocated for the running of the courts like in other parts of the country.

The worst sector is the remuneration of Judges and Magistrates. From the lowest courts right up to the Supreme Court the Common Law Magistrates are by all standards the wretched of the judicial corps except they lend themselves as tools for demeaning of their folks.

The above deliberately constructed poverty of justice for a particular sector of Cameroon betrays unacceptable assimilation and recruitment into the corruption culture that thrives under the Civil Law System as opposed to the pride and dignity fueled common law system.

The above picture calls for very urgent corrective legislative surgery advised by recognition of the better system that the Common Law offers. Of course, the easier way out would be to restore the Southern Cameroons judicial system so that it may function and provide a nursery for improvements of other judicial systems in the Central African Economic Region and thus create an enabling environment for sustainable human development with capacity for acceleration rather than waiting for 2035!

f.   Whether or not the undermining of the liberal character of the private legal profession is unhealthy for the justice system?

The cleansing organ of a performing judiciary is a vibrantly liberal Bar. In Cameroon the Bar is gravely hamstrung with a very constricted mandate worsen by encouraged competition from multinational consulting firms. It is also notable that the over specialization of legal professions for the sole reasons of keeping Bailiffs and Notaries under the direct day to day control of the government, robs the public particularly those of the Common Law Jurisdiction of   the benefits of a competitive liberal Bar.

It is therefore not amusing to find in Cameroon a Bar that is so distant from being a liberal Profession. Independent bodies like a Council of Legal Education, Body of Benchers, Law School and an independent Bar that complement each other in the assurance of a Bar with a reliable form and content, while they constitute conditions sine qua non in a Common Law System, are rather strange institutions within a Civil Law Culture. Interestingly at independence and for a long while thereafter “La Republique du Cameroun” neither knew of nor had anything proximate to a Bar. It is only after the false marriage between “West Cameroon” and “La Republique du Cameroun” that the Common Law lawyers with an existing Bar extended the idea to “La Republique du Cameroun “.

The one reason there is always a serious advocacy for a virile liberal Bar is that it is only and independent, active and liberal Bar that informs and animates a genuine and sustainable democratic culture. No doubt the efforts towards developing a democratic in Cameroon have been comparable only to an engine that is revving on one spot.

It is inescapable therefore to conclude, especially for the Common Law Lawyers and the jurisdictional home of common law in Cameroon today, that the Bar in this Country has been a victim of destructive control in a characteristically discriminatory manner that targets primarily the ridicule and annihilation of Cameroon Common Law.

g.  Whether or not judicial organization is not designed to produce more injustice than justice?

The organization of the judiciary essentially addresses the establishment of courts and their jurisdictional competences (territorial and material) in a hierarchical order ignores the way courts were organized, manned and run in the pre- and –immediate post-independent Southern Cameroons (later called West Cameroon). There was a corps of Magistrates divided into Grades while Judges manned the High Court and Supreme Court. The Justices of the High Court and Supreme Court were recruited from amongst senior Magistrates or Legal Practitioners of tested performance and integrity by the procedure of upliftment to the higher bench.

The above described system has since been replaced without any legal basis with a simple Magisterial Corps with five (5) narrow nominal categories ranging from Magistrates grade 1, 2, 3, 4, and “super scale”. This personnel depends on the High Judicial Council which is headed by the Executive –President of “La Republique du Cameroun” and his singularly appointed Minister of Justice. This dependency on the executive arm of government readily lends itself corrupt patronage which leads to inconsequential seniority in the corps.

What is worse is that the transferability of Magistrates between the Attorney General’s department (Legal Department) and the Bench not on any defined or imaginable standard of assessment of competence, more often than not leads to square peg finding themselves in round holds of courts. The effect is obvious confusion, low performance and an undesirable low integrity of justice.

This unfortunate flux of matters regarding the organization of the judiciary encourages the thriving culture of corruption in Cameroon. The absence of an independent Judicial Commission and its consequences evoke painfully sad recollection of the West Cameroon Judiciary which, as described above gave the public greater assurance of integrity of justice from the law courts.

The dismal picture painted of judicial organization hereabove needs urgent attention and a jettisoning of the traditional legislative conquest approach of the establishment of “La Republique du Cameroun“. In replacement a restructuring of organization of the judiciary is urgent and imperative which requires as a take-off point the restoration of West Cameroon judiciary whose functioning shall inform a humble and creative review and redesign of the Judiciary of “La Republique du Cameroun”.

h.  Whether or not the needs of the community of peoples within the common law jurisdiction are better served by a state-sponsored specialization of the practice of advocacy and notarial work?

The needs and interest of the community of peoples of any civilized society especially a developing one like that from which the Southern Cameroons/West Cameroon has suffered degeneration for over a half century is a reliable, performing judiciary imbued with such integrity and respect that both members of the community and non-members who come into it can safely trust the quality of justice they await in their social and business interactions.

For the above ideals to be attained, there needs to be a dramatic increase in the number and quality of Lawyers who may begin to assure access to justice through performing practitioners drawn from a competitive and liberal Bar rather than the confusion of have a nation that projects by Decree or Presidential policy speech, its emergence into a virile economy in 2035!

The too early and decreed over-specialization of the legal profession into Advocates, Notaries and Bailiffs, simply because by the franchise character of the job and tenure of Civil Law type Notaries and Bailiffs, simply fuels an overpowered Executive that by such control lends itself to dictatorship than to democracy.

In the light of the foregoing and in the utmost interest of liberating both the peoples and the economy of Cameroon, it is advised that the provision in the Bar law that gives a mere temporary mandate to Common Law Advocates to perform the duties of Notaries within the Common Law jurisdiction should be made definitive through a corrective and completing legislative amendment. Being our brothers’ keepers it is not out of place to suggest that in the civil law jurisdiction of “La Republique du Cameroun”, the practice of the professions of Advocate and Notary should be fused so that they all become liberal professionals and the question of specialization into a particular area of practice should become a matter of personal choice.

4.  Conclusion and Recommendation:

The foregoing has been a cursory reflection on the situation of security of Common Law in Cameroon doubly informed by the training and post-professional experience over a quarter century on the one hand and exchanges with Colleagues of the common law extraction across the same period. These reflections were prepared in response to the theme of this conference and designed to provoke constructive contributions from participants, the results of which could inform and influence positive change.

It is gratifying the informal debates amongst us which have now been brought to this formal forum of a focal conference on the predicament of common law in Cameroon will be vibrantly embraced and responded to with a view to charting a new direction in Law Formation, Review and reform.