This posting by Barrister Akere Muna (http://bareta.press/management-diversity-cry-common-law-lawyers/ ) ought to arouse the soul and conscience of everyone. Only a visionary leader can rise to the challenge and lay out the basic truths concerning the soul of the polity in time of need.

For those who did not know that Cameroon is indeed has a serious problem of paucity of a leadership, let them read and learn. Let them also closely analyse the ongoing strike and repression of the common law lawyers and ask themselves critical questions. Does Cameroon still have a leader? Does the rule of law exist in Cameroon? Cameroonians must be looking at the reaction or inaction of the government to the plight and protest of Common Law Lawyers and asking critical questions without answers.

One musician, I think Petit Pay has provided an answer to a critical question that is on everyone’s mind but few are bold to ask publicly. There is indeed fear in the land. There is an evil spell hanging over supposed policy makers which make them prisoners of their own deceptive power. This brings to the mind another question. What if for some reason the non-responsive posturing of the President betray a greater personal problem over which he himself has no control and needs help? This question is asked in all honesty considering the reaction of the government to critical issues that have befallen Cameroon in quick succession over the last decade. Is it normal that a nation on life support can survive in suspense awaiting miracles that never ever occur? In this situation, and this calls for everyone’s introspection, only, since fear may not allow some people to confront the truth head on as the venerable learned Akere has done, what does tomorrow hold for those who still believe that there may be solutions to our problems from some consistently abstract authority other that ourselves.

For this and this reason and many others, I suggest the Common Law Lawyers protest and revendication are a God given an opportunity for everyone to critically ask the question: Must we search for God and Justice away from the one and only one true God? I unreservedly support the Common Law Lawyers and the cause that has brought them so much pain and suffering. This cause will not die just because someone is sending soldiers, police and gendarmes to maim, and torture. No never.

Lest we forget, without a Yondo Black and Albert Mukong, the democratic space in Cameroon may not have been opened. Yet their cause was political and hinge on their interpretation of the Constitution regarding political pluralism. The venerable Barrister Ben Muna, Bar Council President under whom I am proud to have served for so many years, asked all of us to cross the Mungo to come to the defence of democratic constitutionalism and the rule of law. We came and despite all the threats and attacks, we were proud to be lawyers.

We were happy to be humiliated in the defence of the law and rule of law. We were happy to be on the side of international legality and the forces of change that were then under attack. Today, times have changed so much and our oppressors in those circumstances have consistently called on us to defend them from the very oppressive system which they built. Mr friend Dr Bate Besong whom the Douala-Yaounde Express Graveway claimed a certain nightmarish 8 March, once said that in Cameroon those who hold the keys to the prisons will end up in the Prisons themselves. So, therefore, those who believe they hold the keys to power and oppression will like others before have a taste of the oppressive empire they built to torture and humiliate others.

Today at The Hague we in the ICC Defence Executive Council received a request to condemn the arrest of a Judge in Turkey, I placed a hold on the resolution until a similar resolution can be taken in support of the Common Lawyers in Cameroon. I have been having phone calls from all corners of the world asking me what is happening in Cameroon with government brutalising Common Law Lawyers? So , therefore, this cause will never go away until a durable solution is found.

Chief Charles A. Taku