In Cameroon, lawyers are holding their General Assembly this Saturday, June 18 in Yaoundé to choose the new Bar Council from which the president will come. Election after an interim period of one and a half years following the death during the mandate of the previous incumbent in October 2020. The new representative of the lawyers of Cameroon will have to carry the word of his colleagues and defend the values of the occupation.
This Saturday, between 2,000 and 3,000 lawyers are expected at the Palais des Sports in Yaoundé. For the post of president, seven candidates have declared themselves. The debates and the vote promise to be long and could stretch over the weekend.
The issue is important. The Bar Association is weakened according to Me Patrice Monthe, spokesperson for the Conference of Former Presidents of Cameroon.
In mid-April, the latter all co-signed a solemn declaration in which they called on the lawyers of Cameroon to choose their representatives today on the criteria of experience and exemplary character.
“Community”
As sages, they lament the ” politicization and communitization “of the Bar” maintained, according to them by the public authorities “.
Other ” derivative ” denounced by the former presidents: ” bullying, beatings and brutality sometimes going as far as imprisonment suffered by some lawyers.
In its solemn declaration, the Conference of former Presidents of the Bar also recalled the assassination of a colleague in unclear circumstances in January in the North-West region.
“ Our profession is in crisis, as is the entire judicial institution today “, according to the former president of the Bar, Maître Patrice Monthe, who also chairs the Union of Lawyers of Central Africa.
Patrice Monthe, former president and spokesperson for the Conference of Former Presidents of Cameroon