By Ayah Paul Abine,Deputy Atorney general of the Supreme Count of Cameroon
It is notoriously repetitive, but we still wish, for emphasis, to begin
by recurring to the conspicuous fact that there are two juxtaposed
legal systems in Cameroun/Cameroon: the Common Law and the Civil Law.
The third arm is the crude gloss over the two systems christened
“national laws” by misnomer. “By misnomer” because, in reality, both the
national substantive and adjective laws in the domain under
consideration are but a nefarious pigmentation of the French Civil Law
singular lotion…
The law on the structure and functioning of the
Supreme Court is no exception to the general rule. It admits of no
contention that it is “national” only insofar as it is relative to
jurisdiction ratione loci. But it is beyond doubt that it is the
ramification and by-product of the Civil Law system, fastidiously
hostile to any influence from the Common Law system. It is no boldness
to assert that the law in question is the regurgitation of undigested
garbage from the French civil code and civil procedure code, inspired by
alien culture not altogether not inimical to sane judgment, equity and
good conscience.
That global assertion is exemplified by the
fact that the six top positions of that court from the President and the
Attorney General through the heads of Divisions are all occupied by
Camerounese to the total exclusion of Cameroonians. One may assert with
little fear of error that, of the over fifty Camerounese judges, hardly
10% can honestly affirm that they have as much as heard about the rules
of court which are like the Bible in adjective civil law in the Common
Law system…
Clearly, a judgment written on the basis of those
rules cannot ever be fairly determined on appeal on the foundation of a
different set of rules; let alone where, in the one system, Equity has
rendered the rules flexible; while elsewhere the technicalities are akin
to “forms of actions” that occasioned untold hardships and injustices
that were the hallmark of “forms of actions” centuries ago in Common
Law.
Again would it be noted that the language of the court is
essentially alien to the Cameroonian. Justice should not only be done.
The litigant must be satisfied that there has been fairness in the
process and in the proceeding. It is immaterial that the litigant is
represented by counsel who understands what is going on. Ultimately, it
is the litigant’s cause and not that of the counsel. And nature allows
no-one to hear for the other. Indisputably, the core truth is ever
watered down in reported speech!
It would be submitted,
therefore, that, the Supreme Court having final jurisdiction, it would
be salutary to create a Division of that court to do justice to
Cameroonians. We see in my minds’ eyes someone arguing the case for
harmonization. But it makes no difference when harmonization means
simply borrowing from the French codes for complacent “enactment”, and
domineering application in tantalizing French.
Therefore do we
persist in holding that the Supreme Court as it is now cannot do justice
to Cameroonians in civil matters. We do challenge whosoever to prove
the contrary to us.
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