North West region lawyers accuses Magistrates of being "Four, One, Niners"

The Association of North West lawyers ( NOWELA) have decried the extortion practise by most Magistrates within the region, Cameroon Concord has learnt. The group has written a strongly worded petition bearing 6 major grievances to the President of the Bamenda Appeal Court for onward transmission to Yaoundé. The legal brains complained that the Magistrates charged exorbitant sums of money from both plaintiff and respondent for a team to go out for surveys pertaining to land disputes or other small issues.

NOWELA stated that some Magistrates in Bamenda would request both parties to pay as much as 150.000 FCFA each to survey a dispute that is within Bamenda city. The lawyers wondered aloud that at times the amounts the Magistrates demand to move out of their courtyard go up to millions of FCFA. This according to the North West advocates is a locust fee and extortion of the poor farmers or cattlemen who simply seek justice.

The Lawyers also protested against judges who prefer to use the French language to intimidate disputing parties who can barely utter a word in French. The Common law men and women observed that the language of communications in North West courts should be English which is not only a constitutional right but a minority right in a bilingual Cameroon.

Cameroon Concord understands that for a long time now, there are recurrent arguments in courts around the North West region between Francophone judges and Anglophone lawyers on which language comes first. Francophone judges have claimed that they can only handle cases using the French language which they master properly. It is vital to include in this report that during court sessions in Francophone regions, presiding Anglophone judges do not use the English language.