Ayah Paul to retire from judiciary in December

Ayah Paul Abine, National President of the Popular Action Party, PAP, has announced that he will be going on retirement from the judiciary and by extension leave the Supreme Court as Advocate General on Wednesday December 21, 2016.

The Advocate General made the disclosure in Yaounde, Saturday July 9, on the sideline of a PAP gathering meant for the installation of party executives of Yaounde V chapter.

Contrary to public opinion that Ayah had gone on retirement before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, the PAP chieftain insisted that he had not yet gone on retirement.

He said he was on detachment to the National Assembly for eleven years when he was MP and returned to his ministry of origin – Ministry of Justice – when his stay in parliament came to an end. “Normally, I was supposed to be reinstated as magistrate in 2014, but it came late (2015),” Ayah told attendees at the PAP meeting.

The PAP chieftain reiterated that he is due retirement by the end of 2016, but did not rule out possibility of continuing to serve, should President Paul Biya, Chairman of the Higher Judicial Council, decide to keep him.

“I will continue to serve as magistrate if my services are needed. I am to the service of the people. If people think that I am still strong enough to serve, why not? I will serve the people,” Ayah told reporters when asked if he will continue working should such a circumstance arise.

Ayah also said at the Saturday gathering that PAP is faring well and making great strides, though he maintained that he still sponsors the party up to 90% from his private pockets.

Quizzed on his relationship with the secessionist group – Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, Ayah noted that “I have never registered with SCNC but my ideas and those of the group coincide.”

On the presidential clemency granted the Franco-Cameroonian lawyer, Lydienne Yen Eyoum, the magistrate observed that France coerced Biya to free the thieving lawyer.

He, however, maintained that Biya acted within his prerogatives and that if he had been head of state and was to grant such clemency to jailed state officials like Ephraim Inoni, Marafa Hamidou, Zacchaeus Forjindam, amongst others, he would have looked into it from case to case.

“Jailing embezzlers of state resources and giving them selective clemency is not the best solution. PAP had proposed that a National Truth and Reconciliation programme be carried out,” Ayah said.