MPs Warn Gov't Against Creating Courts Of Terror

By Kini Nsom

MPs have warned government against establishing what they called courts of terror in the country.The MPs gave the warning as they scrutinised the bill on the creation of Military Tribunals in all the ten Regions of the country on December 12.

The bill that was finally adopted after stormy debates sets up a Military Tribunal in each Region.It refers the crime of armed robbery to the competence of the Military Tribunal alone.This means that the court will be trying civilians.

When debates on the bill began, the Wouri MP, Hon. Jean Jacques Ekindi, presented a preliminary objection, calling on the government to withdraw it. "It will be dangerous for civilians to be tried at the Military Tribunal for whatever reason.The Military Tribunal is a specific court. Military justice is a kind of justice that is not justice," Ekindi argued.

He said the law would give room for gendarmes to settle scores with civilians because a gendarme can see a gun that does not exist.The matter was put to vote and the CPDM Parliamentary majority crushed Hon. Ekindi's preliminary objection and the bill was adopted.
Speaking to The Post, Akwaya MP Hon. Paul Ayah said he was disappointed that Parliament voted such a bill.

Hear him: "Parliament has delivered up the citizens of Cameroon to courts outside the mainstream judiciary for common law offences. Indeed, only our Parliament can nonchalantly castrate the judiciary of the country by such imputation, taking refuge under the perforated canopy of party discipline without circumspection of over its long term consequences of our myopic selfish to conform and please" 

The MP said it incomprehensible that: "In our crusade against the very people that we profess to represent in Parliament, we could go ahead to adopt, most expeditiously, like nursery school pupils reciting Christmas carols in eagerness to eat rice and stew, the bill on military justice where the judiciary is amputated."

He said the judiciary, by dint of the bill, has lost jurisdiction over the felony of armed robbery which has been extended in Cameroon to mean; the use of a false key, climbing over a wall and breaking in.

Hon. Ayah warned that with such an interpretation, water can become a weapon.He said "all such circumstances now fall under the jurisdiction of the Military Tribunals as per the new law on military justice that the honourable MPs have adopted as a Christmas gift."
According to Momo MP, Hon. Joseph Mbah Ndam, the government drafted the bill in a hurry and adopted it in haste. 

He expressed fears that the government might have created courts of terror where civilians will be tried and summarily executed.He said there is need to stem the tides of insecurity in Cameroon, but not at the expense of human rights.

For his part, Hon. Simon Forbi Nchinda, Mezam MP, expressed regret that there is not enough provision in the bill for the protection of civil liberties. He said it is clearly stated in the bill that private residences will be searched during investigations, wondering whether such searches can protect human rights.

The Noun MP, Hon. Tomendo Ndam Njoya, expressed doubts as to whether the military courts can deliver justice.On the contrary, Mamfe Central MP, Hon. Moses Obenofunde, saluted the military courts, saying they will help to fight the high rate of insecurity in the country. 

The Bill

Bill no. 831\ PJL\AN, tailored to organise military justice and lay down rules of procedure applicable before the military tribunals, is made up of eight chapters.According to its provisions, the Military Tribunal is henceforth, competent to hear the following offences; offences committed by service men in violation of military justice, offences against laws on war and defence weapons; all offences relating to the purchase, sale, production and distribution, wearing or possession of military effects or insignias as specified by military regulations.

Section II of the bill provides that criminal investigation officers may carry out house searches, visit residential premises and make seizures only in accordance with ordinary law.

Section 8 of the law says minors aged between 14 and 18 who commit or are accomplices of the offences, shall be under the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts.Last Friday's plenary marked the end of the November parliamentary session that adopted six bills.

Comments

[Dr A A Agbormbai]

I know that this bill is controversial, and in ordinary circumstances I would not support it. However, given what has been prevailing in the country for some time, it is important that the gov't sends a clear message that it will not tolerate insecurity. This bill certainly does it.

As time passes it can be modified to remove any crudeness. And as the country becomes freer of terror crimes the bill can be returned to the judiciary.

[Manga]

Dr. Agbombai,

Are they creating military courts because the civilian courts have failed? the answer is a resounding NO! The problem in Cameroon regarding "grand banditisme" is not the ability of the courts to mete justice but the inability of security forces to neutralize and or apprehend criminals. Our penal code is good enough to try any crime including "terror".

Before soon, we will see political activists being dragged to court for "terror" charges, just as the "grand banditry" clause in the 1990 law was later used to detain political activists without the intervention of the courts.

As long as we don't clearly identify the real problem we will continue to chase shadows while giving the crooks in the Biya regime to continue their repressive tactics.

[red flag]

In all these, the solution is INDEPENDENCE FOR AMBAZANIA. British southern cameroons. nothing else.

[Fonngang]

Mr Manga,
You are one hundred percent correct. The crime rate is high not because the existing court system cannot do the job but simply because the level of corruption is too high. What is it that obstructs the present court system that will not obstruct the military tribunal?
Like everything else in Cameroon the authorities are avoiding the object and chasing its shadow.
And the way the contributor called Dr. Agbor Mbai has approached this topic and a host of others here, I would suggest he stops attaching that Dr. Title to his name. Why would a Dr. be so naive in his pereption? I am not a doctor and many would not be looking up to me for some intelligent guidance or approach to issues. Drs owe it to us for intellecual guidance and that is why I am just pissed off with this guy.
The foundations of the nation have completely fallen apart and here come politicians with cosmetic measures only in an attempt to sidestep what the real problem is. How can anything work in a corruption ridden absentee dictatorship without any functioning infrastucture? The level of professional ethics is at best inexistent, personal security is zero, despite the thousands of police officers seen all over the country. Their participation too in violent criminal activity is an open secret. What can a military tribunal to be run by these criminals themselves accomplish in Cameroon?

[Ma Mary]

Dr Agbormbai, are you still currying favour from the occupier of the Southern Cameroons? You are not dissimilar from the German intellectuals who facilitated the ascent of Adolf Hitler to power. Fonngang gets it and I need not elaborate.

[buea1]

fonngang and ma mary, you guys are right on the money!!!thousands of new laws with the same rotten corrupt officials will just increase the already smelly fowl stench in the stinking rotten outhouse.
the good old dr. should listen to lapiro's song,"lefam so"

[CountryFowl]

Dr. AAA Writes:
" I know that this bill is controversial, and in ordinary circumstances I would not support it. However, given what has been prevailing in the country for some time, it is important that the gov't sends a clear message that it will not tolerate insecurity. This bill certainly does it. "

We should be careful in the use of the word governance in the context of African countries in a moral sense & even as per dictionary definition. There are perhaps very few countries in Africa today where such a legitimate word can be used to describe governance.
Since the dawn of what was some form of a pseudo-independence ritual that purportedly handed over governance & rule to native people, many African countries simply transited from bondage & slavery to Europeans to another form of an extraordinary system of exploitation from their own kind.
In a union of people, where 1 percent of the population is in a permanent exploitative relationship with 99 percent of the population, inclusively existing psychological as well as physically on the rest of the population, surely such a union can not be said to be democratic. 99 percent of the population are passive non participants in the determinative processes of their destinies, well being & day to day life.

Criminalized Institutions, organized cliques of thugs & goons, exclusive ethnic elitist groups, set up as governance structures were systematically put in place specifically to control the population & guard the goods & properties of the ruling class. Such institutions can not go by the name of governing bodies or judiciary institutions et cetera, rather we will have to coined new words to describe such spectacular & macabre phenomena, which you can only read of in fiction books & fairy tales.

The police, the gendarmes, the army, the judiciary, the civl service structures et cetera slowly evolved not as protective organizations to maintain law & order, rather they grew & metamorphosed into highly organized institutions of thievery, strong-arming, looting, killing and so on.
The rise of criminal activities in Cameroon is directly proportionate to the increase in poverty, disease, utter hopelessness, despair, cruelty, chaos & insecurity all of which are as a direct result of the scorch & dispossess, sabotage & loot policies of the present & past regime instituted against the Cameroonian people & resources of the land.
The past & present regime have been waging a persistent & systematically organized economic, social, intellectual, political, religious, cultural sabotage & warfare against it's own people & it is utter naivety or conscious blindness on the part of any Cameroonian or other Africans not to see or have a comprehensive insight into these pervasive systems that are their number enemy.
The patterns & trends, are the same right across the African continent. Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Malawi, Dr. Congo, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Chad, CAR, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Niger, Guinea Bissau & Guinea Conakry, Morocco, Mauritania et cetera et cetera.