REVOLUTIONARY LAWYERING                             

Signposting Common Law Lawyers' Resolutions and Determination (I & II)

(For Felix Agbor Nkongho, Roland Abeng et al)

By Canute Tangwa

Signposting is essential because we need to know how far we have fared and what we intend to do in the days or years ahead. It is invariably a performance and result indicator; a watchdog of sorts for this that we quickly know whether we are on track or not. Where necessary, we shift or adjust signposts when socio-economic and political considerations so demand. That is why we take stock and make projections or forecasts. Individuals, corporations, organisations and governments plant signpost. Where there is signposting there is hope.

Lawyers of the Common Law tradition in Cameroon gave reason to hope in the month of May last year. It is true that a good lawyer is one who knows where to find the law. History is replete with lawyers who knew where to find the law and liberated their peoples or made the impossible possible: Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama respectively come to mind.

As George Ngwane (in Cameroon: Testament to the All Anglophone Lawyers’ Conference) rightly states, “...lawyers have always been regarded as the voice of the voiceless or preferably those who amplify the voices of the silent...shielded by the virtues of independence and immunity and rooted in the world view of facts and logic, lawyers have been known to walk where ordinary professionals fear to tread and to push the courage and candour of human qualities beyond the frontiers of professional limitations...it is they who ‘stand the risk of their bones being exhumed from graves and roasted for failing to address problems’ confronting the people and their society”.

Our Common Law lawyers have never been this vocal and solidaire. Meeting in Bamenda on May 9, 2015, under the Cameroon Common Law Lawyers’ Conference, they crafted a-6 point strongly worded memo to the authorities in Yaounde and to the international community. Taking the cue certain legal minds like Barristers Bobga Harmony Mbuton and Felix Agbor Balla Nkongho embarked on a charm-PR mission to French speaking television channels. From indications, they received a sympathetic ear since most French speaking lawyers were too aware of these injustices.

The custodians of our traditions who virtually oversaw the unification-reunification process of the two Cameroons, pointedly the South-West Chiefs under the umbrella of the South West Chiefs Conference, gave punch to the lawyers' demands by endorsing most of the resolutions. It could not have been otherwise because they were marshalled by reunification flash fires and torch bearers. But though the Mbangalum, Manjong, Samba, Mfu nor the Kwifor up country did not swing or chant in like manner, the meeting holden in Abakwa was a pointer to our custodians of mores and traditions up kontri to shift or adjust their signposts. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, it may come to pass that some had eyes to wonder but lack tongues to praise while others had eyes to wonder and had tongues to praise.

When the din was loudest, the government reacted quickly with the first toothpaste measures: redeployment of French speaking magistrates who drew the ire of lawyers in the first place. However, it is instructive that some lawyers fell for this bait: going on all fours on Facebook pages sending motions of gratitude.  Making the redeployment of French speaking magistrates a symbol of good faith from the other party 'is like putting lipstick on a frog'.

But our lawyers gave the government a reasonable time to address the issues. Pure legalese; for a reasonable time or period in law is quite elastic and consequent on certain parameters. What is a reasonable time under the present dispensation? Is it 6 months, one year or two years? How reasonable is a 6 month deadline given that it has all but elapsed. Since the wheels of justice do not necessary move in tandem with the aspirations of a people, our lawyers should shift and adjust their signposts in the manner of a Mandela.

Since the business of memory is a bounden duty, particularly for ‘the foot soldiers of our Constitution’-our lawyers, a recap of the lawyers’ resolution is not an exercise in futility.

PART II

Our lawyers declared urbi et orbi: “Meeting this ninth day of May, 2015 at Bamenda in the North West Region of Cameroon, after carefully and assiduously deliberating on a wide range of issues affecting the nature and quality of the administration of justice and the rule of law in Cameroon, especially as they negatively impact the minority English-speaking members of this Bi-Cultural, Bi-Jural, Bi-Lingual Nation, take the following resolutions;

1. 
   We strongly condemn and oppose the bias nature of law making in Cameroon and particularly condemn the past discriminatory amendments of the Constitution; we demand Government to immediately take measures to call for a constitutional conference or a referendum for the amendment of the constitution.
2. We note the deliberate and well planned program of whittling away and replacement of the Common Law-inspired rules of Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure, and of Evidence, with a system and culture of French-inspired or copied Civil Law and strongly and unequivocally reject this process and practice and demand the restoration of the referred Common Law-inspired Rules of practice and Procedure.
3. The spirit of interpretation of harmonized laws within the South West and North West Regions should be common law inspired; in particular, the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), OHADA UNIFORM ACTS, Cima Code, etc
4. We oppose and reject the progressive replacement of Common law inspired rules and principles of substantive law in such areas as contract, tort, land law, family law, etc. and call for their restoration within the Common Law jurisdiction in strict respect of the bi-jural nature of our country and in keeping with the Country’s Constitution;
5. We strongly condemn the absence of independence of the Country’s Judiciary and the domination and control of the judiciary by the executive with the resulting loss of a truly transparent, credible and independent system of administration of justice and its attendant unpredictability and call for an immediate review of the justice sector of the country with a view to rendering it more Just, Functional, more credible, less corrupt, independent, dependable and reliable in the service of justice and a truly democratic society;
   6. We deplore the lack of independence of the Cameroon Bar Association.
   PROPOSALS FOR A NEW DIRECTION IN THE JUSTICE SECTOR IN CAMEROON:
   A- We demand an Independent Bar Association free of any Government Supervision and Control.

B- We hereby propose a new direction for the future of the Justice Sector in Cameroon and recommend the creation, of a national, Independent Law Reform/Review Commission comprising principally, Practicing Lawyers, Jurists and Judges. We therefore recommend that the government should halt any project on the harmonization of laws until the national law commission is put into place and functional.

C- All Judicial Processes and proceedings in the Common Law Jurisdictions should be conducted in the English language - in criminal matters; this should be from interrogations through investigations to hearing and Judgment.

D- The Two Divisions of Common Law and Civil Law be clearly defined and operated side by side in ENAM and the quota of intake in both divisions known in advance. Only common law trained Magistrates to be posted in the South West and North West Regions and Civil Law Trained Magistrates to the Civil Law Jurisdictions.

E- That the Educational System in the South west and North West Regions should not be adulterated, English speaking citizens should have their studies in the English language from cradle to professional life. That all Public Examinations be organized in two Poles; English and French with none being translated from the other and the quota in both poles known in advance.

F- We demand the establishment of TWO chambers of the Supreme Court of Cameroon that represent the Common Law and Civil Law System, with Judges appointed to the Chambers from Common Law and Civil Law backgrounds to address legal issues from both legal cultures respectively. In this regard, we propose the appointment of Judges from the Private Bar into the Various Courts of Justice of the Common Law System.

G- We recommend the amendment of law no. 90/059 of 19th December 1990 to organize practice at the bar and make provision for the creation of Law Schools. We propose the creation of a National Council of Legal Education to ensure the direction of legal education in the Common Law and Civil Law jurisdictions, develop curricula for academic and professional training of lawyers and to set up and supervise a system of continuing legal education for Lawyers, Prosecutors, Judges/Magistrates and other judicial actors.

We also reiterate our previous resolution unanimously endorsed at the Cameroon Bar Association’s General Assembly in Buea on the 28th day of June 2014; that no Notaries be appointed in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon.

H- We have observed with utter dismay that there has been and continues to be a lack of protection with regard to the rights of the minority(Anglophone Cameroonians) as provided for in the constitution of this bi-jural, bilingual and bi-cultural nation. It is obvious that the rights of the Anglophones in Cameroon in the spheres of education, socio-cultural values, administrative set ups etc, are continuously and systematically being eroded with a view of imposing the socio-cultural and administrative views of the French and or Civil heritage of the majority Francophone Cameroon.

We demand that the State should exercise its Constitutional duty to protect the Anglophone minority and by so doing, protect our history, heritage, education and cultural values. Consequently for the better protection of the minority Anglophone Cameroonians and the Common Law heritage, we strongly demand a Federation.

We hereby give Government a reasonable period from the date of deposit of these resolutions through the Bar Council to react positively to our demands, failing which this conference shall take the necessary disposition within the national legal frame work and if dissatisfied, seek further redress from international dispute resolution fora as shall be deemed appropriate.”

The symbiotic relation between time and action cannot be overemphasized. The Bible teaches that there is a time for everything. There is a time for truth and there is a time for action.

The crux of Bernard Fonlon's secret memo to Ahmadou Ahidjo in 1964 titled The Time is Now was marginalisation and erosion of the values of the English speaking component of the Federation. It was a time of truth, three years into the union between British Southern Cameroons and the French Cameroons. The caption itself was like a call to arms; akin to Nkrumah's independence now. When he more or less single-handedly took up this challenge, there was a West Cameroon Bar Association with over ten members, trained in the best Inns of Court in England! Back then, did our lawyers fail 'to walk where ordinary professionals fear to tread?'

In 1985, taking advantage of the change of leadership in Cameroon, one-time President of the Cameroon Bar, Fongum Gorji Dinka together with Fonlon and others wrote the New Social Order that was supposed to be presented at the CNU Congress in Bamenda by Fonlon. The New Social Order was quite revolutionary in content because it challenged the legal basis of the change of name from United Republic of Cameroon to Republic of Cameroon thus rubbishing the foundation of our Res Una Republica. It was a time of truth tinged with some action that never came to pass. The lawyer in Gorji Dinka did not fear to tread!

Let's fast track to the OWONA-led Constitutional Conference that gave birth to the famous EMIA- Elad, Munzu, Itoe and Anyangwe; legal giants. But before EMIA confiscated the klieg lights, a legal lode star, professor and barrister-at-law, Ndiva Kofele Kale had proposed a constitutional conference when the cry in every nook was for a Sovereign National Conference. With hindsight, Kale's proposal was the middle ground that actors at that time failed to bank on.

When EMIA tabled its draft to the Constitutional Conference, it was hastily dismissed as a pale copy of the Nigerian constitution! EMIA swung into action; organisation of the All Anglophone Conference (AAC1) and AAC2 which snowballed into the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) with its motto (the force of argument not the argument of force) and the rest is history. The lawyer in EMIA and Kale 'amplified the voices of the silent'.

Except for sporadic snippets and wrangling, Common Law Lawyers went into a deep slumber. They got up in Bamenda after moonlighting in Kumba and elsewhere and served government a revolutionary 6-point resolution.  

According to Yaniv Roznai, “lawyers have a responsibility to create social change and improvement”. By the nature of their profession and their recorded strong involvement in the major revolutions that have shaped the world, lawyers should be the flagships of what he terms revolutionary lawyering since according to Neta Ziv, “the pursuit of law is not a privilege...it holds in it the responsibility to repair our professional public surroundings and to improve it”.