Satanic verses: Those Anglophone Ministers Who Ignore Supreme Court Verdicts (Ngole Philip Ngwese, Ama Tutu Muna)

Ama Tutu Muna

Phillip Ngwese

The Supreme Court is the highest court of the land and in legal parlance, the court of final jurisdiction. The 1974 decree on the organization of courts in Cameroon is very clear on this fact: the decision of the Supreme Court can never be challenged or set aside. Cameroon courts are organized in such a way that a matter is introduced to the court system either through the magistrate’s court or the Court of First Instance. Some matters can also be introduced directly at the level of the High Court. In both circumstances, when one of the parties in the matter is not satisfied with the judgment of the lower courts, the matter is applied to the Appeal Court . If the decision of the Appeal Court is still not satisfactory to any of the parties, only the Supreme Court is competent to hear such a matter. By going to the Supreme Court, both parties know for a fact that, the decision of the Supreme Court is final and can never, never be challenged.

Anybody or institution attempting to challenge a Supreme Court decision either in full or in part is committing something not less than treason. We know of political parties that have grumbled against Supreme Court decisions in Cameroon but no party has ever openly challenged or disrespected the implementation of the Supreme Court. If opposition political party leaders can only grumble in silence and within political party circles about Supreme Court decisions, and not ignore them, how then Cameroon people who are supposedly frontline CPDM militants and ministers in Paul Biya’s government attempt to ignore Supreme Court decisions for years and no one seem to bother about them?

Do they know the consequences of ignoring Supreme Court verdicts? Do they want to say that they are above the law? How on earth would a government minister who spends time during campaigns reminding others in their constituency that “ Cameroon is a state of law” be the very first ones to outrightly disrespect the law?

There are two glaring cases in point here. Her Excellency Ama Tutu Muna, daughter of former law-maker and House Speaker, Solomon Tandeng Muna, sister to some of the most refined barristers and former Bar Council Presidents in Cameroon (Ben Muna and Akere Muna) is proving to all Cameroonians that she is an exception to that rule of law. How unfortunate it could be in a county for the very Minister of Culture, who is supposed to make sure that the culture of a people as well as the traditions of state institutions are respected, becomes the very first person to ignore court decisions.

Years ago, the Minister of Culture was at loggerheads with the management of the Cameroon Music Corporation, CMC with veteran musician, Sam Mbende as head. This matter which was basically over collection and settlement of authors’ rights escalated beyond arbitration level. The courts were called in and after exhausting avenues in all the lower courts, the matter went to the Supreme Court. Sam Mbende emerged winner. Before the matter could reach the Supreme Court, Ama Tutu Muna had dissolved the Cameroon Music Corporation, CMC, and created SOCAM, now headed by Odile Ngaska. Even though the Supreme Court since gave victory to Sam Mbende and ordered that CMC be restored, Minister Ama Tutu Muna since ignored that decision, preferring to use her administrative prerogative to promote the activities of SOCAM.

Cameroonians have been waiting to see how far Ama Tutu Muna would go. President Biya himself have repeated in all his recent speeches that nobody is above the law, but people like Ama Tutu Muna and Ngole Philip Ngwese think he is addressing some lower generation of Cameroonians.

In his own case, Ngole Philip Ngwese has disrespected a High Court decision to hand back some bird species that the class one business magnate, El Hadj Baba Danpullo regularly imported. He has banked on the fact that it was the South West Regional Delegation of Forestry and Wildlife that was involved in the seizure. Even though the court decision and the intervention from the highest quarters of the land meant nothing to Ngole Philip Ngwese who claims to be a seasoned public service administrator, the fact remains that he wants to bite more than he can chew. Since like horses, they have been taken to the stream and they have refused to drink, they can only have themselves to blame. Even the horse that refused to drink did so because it did not know that there was something called dehydration. If it knew, it would have behaved otherwise.