The Post (Buea)
21 April 2008
Posted to the web 21 April 2008
Kini Nsom
A suit filed by the President of the Action for Meritocracy and Equal Opportunities, AMEC, Joachim Tabi Owono, against President Paul Biya was thrown out by the Supreme Court recently.
Owono dragged the Head of State to the Supreme Court, which is sitting in for the Constitutional Council, for what he terms illegally changing the Constitution. According to the AMEC President, it is unacceptable that Biya who pledged to respect the Constitution, turns around and violates it with impunity.
Owono said Biya betrayed the entire country by conniving with CPDM militants to hijack the sovereignty of the Cameroonian people. In a catalogue of charges, he accused Biya of staging a constitutional coup d etat, abusive use of power and human rights violations.
He stated in his petition to the Supreme Court that it was illegal for the National Assembly to single-handedly adopt the constitutional amendment in an ordinary session.According to him, the Senate would have been, first, put in place, so that the two parliamentary chambers meet in an extraordinary congress to discuss the amendment bill. He said the bill was not sent to the Constitutional Council as provided for by law.
After highlighting the above irregularities, Owono called on the Supreme Court to render the constitutional amendment that the Head of State promulgated into law on April 14, null and void and try President Biya for high treason.
Owono equally prayed the court to dissolve the ruling CPDM party because it has never been legalised or registered since its creation in 1985.The court session, presided over by the President of the Supreme Court, Justice Alexis Dipanda, rejected his claims. The court said it does not have the jurisdiction to try President Biya, noting that only the Court of Impeachment has the powers to do so.
The court equally declared its lack of jurisdiction to dissolve the CPDM party, saying that only militants of that party can dissolve it. While defending the party, one of its senior militants, Pierre Moukoko Mbonjo, said no political party was created in Bamenda on March 24, 1985.
What happened, he said, is that the name of the ruling party was changed from the Cameroon National Union, CNU, to the Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement, CPDM.
A team of CPDM lawyers led by Barrister Guy Noah, argued that the petition made by Owono was not admissible in the first place because he addressed it the Supreme Court and not to the Constitutional Council as provided for by the law.
Source :
http://allafrica.com/stories/200804211958.htmlFoto:
http://fakoamerica.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/09/supreme_court_cameroon.jpg