After new Penal Code is adopted:

NW Lawyers resort to street protests

NW lawyers took to the streets on 23 June 2016

Lawyers in the North West Region have vowed to take to the streets again to protest the adoption of the bill on the modification of the Cameroon Penal Code by the Senate.

                Without any coordination and leadership, from neither the northwest lawyers association nor the Cameroon bar council, the lawyers on June 23, 2016 braved the rains and marched from the High Court premises Up Station to down town, passing through Sonac street to the Commercial Avenue and the Famous Liberty Square, City Chemist round about to protest against the adoption by the Parliament.

                “We reject the manipulation of the constitution in Cameroon”, “lawyers reject any law/bill that projects the rich against the poor”, “We, lawyers reject any bill/law in Cameroon that incriminates landlords-tenant relationship/non-payment of rents” read some of the placards brandished by the lawyers.

                On the scene to stop to protest was the DO for Bamenda 1 subdivision and the SDO for Mezam, Songa Pierre Rene who made fruitless efforts to talk the lawyers out of the protest. The presence of the forces of law and order did not also deter the lawyers from sending out their information.

                When the SDO who was just installed recently asked to know if the law permitted the lawyers to go on a peaceful protest, the lawyers merely reminded him that they can’t talk law with him because he was not a lawyer but a civil administrator.

                According to Barrister Kemende Henry, Representative of the Cameroon Bar Association and Council in the North West Region, the motive of the protest was to make the public understand that the bill is obnoxious because it protects the rich and discriminates against the poor. “We do not want society to blame us tomorrow for not condemning the law,” the barrister said.

                Kemende said the major problem with the bill is that it criminalizes offenses arising from private contracts.

                “There are students who graduated from ENS and ENSET Bamenda two years ago and are yet to have salaries.                                                How do you expect them to respect this new revision of the penal code by paying their bills regularly? How will they even go into the remote areas of Cameroon? We will still table a memorandum to government. If such a bill is finally adopted by the senate, it will be a fundamental violation of human rights” one of the lawyers bemoaned.