BY TALLA AGHAA CHRISTOPHER
Courts in the North West and South West regions still remain grounded despite calls by the President of the Cameroon Bar Council, Barrister Ngnie Kamga Jackson for the Common Law lawyers to resume work. Barrister Ngnie Kamga had in a meeting with some 20 Senior Common Law Lawyers drawn from the North West and South West Regions in Buea on April 8, 2017 resolved that Lawyers will suspend their strike action and resume effective work on May 2, 2017. But till date, courts are still paralysed.
When The SUN visited the Meme High Court holden in Kumba, the cause list comprising of criminal and civil matters for the day were pasted on the notice board of the various courts but the sessions were going on with just the government bench represented. The Bar was empty.
Litigants complained that they came with the hope that Lawyers have suspended their strike action as announced over state media. One of the litigants who spoke to The SUN on conditions of anonymity said that he first made a stopover at his lawyers’ chambers before coming to court but the lawyer told him that it will take a long time for lawyers to resume work considering the present dispensation.
The Sun reached his lawyer for a comment and he said: “the order calling off the strike by the President of the Bar Council is very much okay, but why should we resume work when those we mandated to announce the strike action are still incarcerated and others on the run? When they shall be released and those on the run are back for frank dialogue to continue with the powers that be then effective work will commence.”
This Reporter realised that even some of the Lawyers who attended the Buea conclave with the Batonnier are still to appear in court. A cross section of Kumba-based Lawyers The SUN spoke to asked why they should resume work when the leadership of the Constituent Association of Cameroon Common Law Lawyers made up of .Barristers Harmony Bobga-Mbuton, Agbor Felix Nkongho Balla ,Eyambe Elias Ebai, and Ngangjoh Sopseh Emilien presidents of North West Lawyers Association, NOWELA, Fako Lawyers Association, FAKLA, Meme Lawyers Association, MELA,and Manyu Lawyers Association, MALA, whom they jointly mandated to speak on their behalf have been arrested and others on the run.
“We have asked government to release our leaders and others who have been detained because of the Anglophone Crisis but government is playing for the gallery”, the Lawyers opined.
Quizzed on whether the recent concessions made by the powers that be on the professional demands of the Lawyers is not enough for the Common Law Lawyers to call off the strike, the Lawyers saluted the government for what she is doing but hinted that they need to see effective implementation of the Head of State’s instructions as announced by the Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals.
One of the Lawyers disclosed that he is ready to go to work but questioned the whereabouts of his wig and gown that were seized by forces of law and order during the common law lawyers peaceful demonstration in Buea in November 2016.