Common Law Bar in the Offing As North West Lawyers Threatens to Paralyze Courts and Forced Submissions in French Split in the Cameroon Legal System Eminent SCNCist Jubilate As Lawyers Join Their Struggle

The common Law Lawyers of the North West Region all of NOWELA (North West Lawyers Association) last Monday March 9, 2015 converged at the Ntamulung Presbyterian Church hall in their numbers to take a final decision on the recent decision by the North West Court of Appeal's cantankerous instructions that all submissions in the courts must and should be in French. It should be recalled and must be underlined as you will read from the article that this reaction from officials of the Appeal Court all made up of Francophones, comes after letters were written to high quarter and even to the Head Of State Paul Biya petitioning their actions, with no satisfying connotation at all.

During the meeting which lasted from 10am to 3.45 pm, the Lawyers who were all visibly incensed observed that accepting to present Submissions in French Language in an Anglophone Region like the North West tantamount to Cameroon common Law's genocide. Some pointed out that Anglophone Lawyers practicing in the Francophone Regions of Cameroon present their submissions in French but on the contrary, such is a reserve in the North West at the moment as they are forced to present their submissions in French Language apparently because almost all the personnel of the North West Court of appeal are Francophones.

And given that it is the Head of State President Paul Biya, who made the appointments, they question whether it is a deliberate ploy by government to completely kill the Cameroon Anglophone judiciary system.

Some of the Lawyers who opined that this regime is not only out to kill the common Law which is practiced by Cameroon Anglophone Lawyers, stressed that the regime is also systematically killing the Anglo-Saxon educational sub system. They instanced the recent case in Bamenda where the Francophone student-teachers of the University of Bamenda teachers training colleges were sent to do teaching practice in some 12 government secondary schools in a language (English) the Francophone students do not master until the Parent teachers Association Presidents of those schools, advised the students to stage a peaceful boycott of such teaching practice.

In a Press briefing that followed suit, the President of the North West Lawyers Association (NOWELA) FON Robert NSO said. North West Lawyers have unanimously resolved to paralyze or better still disrupt the courts if they must make submissions in French language. He added that they have equally put in place some strategies which will be implemented very soon should they, still force submissions to be carried out in French. One of the elderly North West Lawyers intimated that the former Minister of Justice, Andre Ngongang Ouanji who wanted to mess up Cameroon's common Law System, was sacked when he left North West and was on his way to the South West Region to spread

his decision.

The representative of the Batonier in the North West Region Barrister Kenmende Henry Gamsey, who explained that he was bound to attend the meeting, noted that he is an advocate of the North West Region and consequently, what concerns North West Lawyers also concerns him. He said the Bar Council has programmed a meeting where he will certainly present the plight of the North, emphasize that North West Lawyers constitute part of the Bar Counsel and so if part of the body has a problem, ways of solving the problem must be looked for.

He said North West Lawyers have finally resolved that they will not receive any submission in French. “It’s high time that a language code be determined when it has to be used, either French or English given that Cameroon is a Bilingual country” he noted.

On how Anglophone Lawyers are now compelled to do submissions in French in their Region, Barrister Kenmende called on the North West Judiciary hierarchy to learn a lesson from CRTV where news is read in both French and English because of the bilingual nature of the Country.

A good number of the Lawyers expressed fear that if the problems, common Law Lawyers are facing persist, they will be left with no other option than to come up with a Common Law Bar Counsel. They instanced the case of other countries where there are more than one Bar Counsel. What Barrister Ben Suh Fuh NOWELA SG Stressed on strongly when accosted by Journalists at his Amity Chamber office, saying, “we are bent and sincerely bent to block and puncture that their assigned moves, because there is even no legal binding to back the

reunification for the officials of the appeal court to think they can or could swallow the Anglo-Saxon Legal System by outright imposition. This may even cause us to come up with our own Common Law Bar.

Tamukong Roland