Persecution Not Prosecution of Marafa

Breaking News: AYAH Wrestles Cameroon Judiciary to the Ground --The
Persecution not prosecution of Marafa: (The Marafa versus Fru Ndi and
Marafa versus Cameroon court cases!) In this must read article written
by PAP National Chairman, Hon. AYAH Paul Abine and member of
parliament for Akwaya, the learnt Lord Justice strips bare and makes
nonsense of the way Cameroon's judiciary operates. He dissects the
flaws of court timing ... his focus is the Marafa versus Fru Ndi case
and the Marafa embezzlement case. Please continue reading ....

The PERSECUTION NOT PROSECUTION
By AYAH Paul ABINE, PAP National Chairman.

Cameroun was awash a few days back with press information that Mr.
Marafa had been summoned up by two courts on the same day. Not any
less was Cameroon! Mr. Marafa was to be before one of the courts to
plead to a charge of defamation consequent upon a complaint lodged in
2008.

By the laws of Cameroun, prosecution is time-barred if a complaint on
defamation is lodged more than four months from the publication of the
defamatory material. Prosecution is equally time-barred if four months
elapse between two actions in preparation (investigation) or in
prosecution.

The summons must have issued on the legal ground that a complaint had
been filed not later than June 2008 as the defamatory material is said
to have been published during the "hunger strikes" of February, 2008.
But what remains inscrutable is how the judge issuing the summons
could have conducted investigation every four months at the least for
more than four years for an offence least complicated. Is not it true
that nothing was required beyond recording statements from witnesses
and from the suspect? Necessarily therefore must the judge show that
he recorded those statements every four months for over four years!

The judge in question knew or is, at least, presumed to know, that if
the contrary is true, then the withdrawal of the complaint was
nugatory. Surely does he know that it is a matter of law that even
where the complaint is filed within the legal time frame, the lapse of
four months without the judge performing an act in investigation or
prosecution automatically leads to prescription. Was there any matter
legally before that judge at the time the summons issued?

Let us begin by supposing that the judge recorded one statement a
week, (which is quite a good record for a diligent Camerounese judge),
then there should be at the least 200 witnesses for the prosecution.
In that event, the learned judge must redefine the ingredient of
corroboration that entailed the hearing of such an astronomical number
of witnesses for corroboration to be found in a matter least
complicated. Even that granted, one would not be apprehensive of being
contradicted in suggesting that, by taking four years to record a
statement from the suspect,such a judge has not done much honour to
the Camerounese judiciary, on the ground that the prolonged delay
smacks of apprehension.

Again, the coincidence between the trial of Mr. Marafa by the
so-called Special Criminal Tribunal and the order for him to appear on
the same day before a common law court does lead those familiar with
the Camerounese judiciary to perceive instruction from the executive
arm of government to the judiciary. That raises the whole issue of the
independence of the judiciary in a country notorious for a domineering
executive. It is an affront to common sense that the subjugation of
the judiciary to the all-powerful executive over the decades has met
with beneficial complacency from those calling themselves learned. It
is all the worse that such is the situation in spite of the
constitutional provision that the judiciary is an independent power,
and, additionally, that the oath of office of a member of the
judiciary enjoins the member, inter alia, "to do justice to all manner
of people without FEAR or FAVOUR…"

One should easily understand that the oath absolutely precludes a
member of the judiciary from operating under the apprehension of
incurring possible adverse consequences from his acts. Submission to
apprehension does equally contradict the legal duty to determine
issues solely in accordance with the "law and (the) conscience" as
stipulated in the oath formula. Few bold jurists would hesitate to
read perjury into a judge's compliance with unlawful orders from
whosoever. It is immaterial that a member of the judiciary only
indirectly seeks to curry favours because the President of the
Republic determines his promotion, appointments and transfers.

A member of the judiciary must be a person of character: impartial,
honest, fearless and disinterested. Anyone lacking in any one of these
minimum prerequisites falls short of attaining just the threshold of
the realm of the "learned profession". If there can be no democracy
without democrats as Mr. Paul Biya once declared, one could by analogy
proclaim without fear or favour that there is no judiciary without
judges. Assailing Mr. Marafa upon the foundation of extra-legal
dictates inevitably leads to the conclusion that Cameroun, in the
main, is still in search of judges – independent judiciary much more.

It is difficult in the circumstance to hold otherwise than that Mr.
Marafa is being persecuted and not prosecuted. Verily my brother, was
not he arrested on the same day with Chief Inoni Ephraim for the same
offence? Why is Marafa's case being rushed when even persons arrested
close to five years earlier on are still awaiting trial? Could some
learned lawyer explicate whether it is within the law these special
expeditious actions by the Special Criminal Tribunal behind the
celebrated international principle of "equal protection of the law"!
Or is it one of the exceptions à la Camerounaise?

PERSECUTION! PERSECUTION! PERSECUTION!

--
The National Strategic Team,
People's Action Party, PAP
National Working Secretariat,
Buea, South West Region,
Cameroon.

SLOGAN: A New People A New Cameroon

*Tel:* (00237) 78 35 80 29 / 94 99 87 43

*E-mail: presidentayah@gmail.com
*Official Website: www.paprc2011.com OR www.ayahpaul.net

*Facebook Page: *www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100001912645245

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"I profoundly believe all Cameroonians will some day speak the same
language, sing the same songs, dance to the same rhythm, dine and wine at
the same table. When the rich shall cater for the poor and the strong shall
help the weak, the law shall be supreme, justice and peace shall forever
reign, if we are honest and believe we can get there. God bless
Cameroon."Hon. Paul AYAH Abine, Cameroon 2011 Presidential aspirant
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