Cameroon Bar Council is bankrupt – Council President

The president of the Cameroon Bar Association, Ntumfor Nico Halle, has declared the coffers of the umbrella organization for lawyers in the country penniless.

Ntumfor made the revelation in Yaounde, Nov. 19, at the opening of a training course to reinforce the capacities of pupil lawyers.

Halle made the revelation after calling on lawyers to make a difference in a country where people in position to manage public funds, seem not to know the difference between their personal money and state funds.

Quizzed whether he implied the money that was in the coffers was embezzled or misappropriated, he told Cameroon Journal “I don’t want to say that, I have not said so. When I talked about embezzlement, I was referring to the entire system which is corrupt. All I am saying is that there is no money in our coffers and that what was in it has been spent.”

Ntumfor disclosed that though lawyers are paying their dues, there are also a good number who do not. “Letters have been sent to lawyers who have not been paying their contributions to do so. We need money so that I can organize a general assembly by the end of February 2016,” Halle noted.

However, Halle also stressed that the lawyers have no legal obligation to contribute. He indicated that it is only a moral responsibility for lawyers to ensure the survival of the institution which guarantees their very existence as professionals.

Earlier in the opening speech, Halle urged both trainers and trainees, past batoniers (former bar council presidents) and student lawyers respectively, to play their role in upholding the independence of the bar and secure its survival.

“We are all dependents of the bar. If the bar dies, we all die. It is a shame we are going cap in hand to keep our association alive. Some former batoniers used their personal money to finance the activities of the bar, it’s a shame,” Halle said.

He called on lawyers to shun ills which are dragging the country backwards such as “embezzlement, corruption, misappropriation, tribalism and so on” and respect the by-laws of the bar as well as the laws governing the country.

Switching from the financial crisis to the subject of the day, he said they are building the capacities of young lawyers “because we cannot have lawyers who are half baked. We are in a noble profession and need to have lawyers who are morally strong and who can defend the image of the profession.”

Halle equally used the occasion to drum up moral support for soldiers fighting Boko Haram insurgents. He proposed a minute of silence for soldiers and citizens killed in the on-going war and urged participants to also pray for actors in the war.

Speaking to reporters shortly after the opening of the training, the current bar council president, Jackson Francis Ngnie Kamnga stated that they are using the training to ensure that young lawyers master the values, maxims, and rules of the profession.

Kamnga said they are also going to teach them how to handle conflicts of interests and professional secrets. “While waiting for the effective setting up of a law school in Cameroon, we will keep contributing to the education of lawyers through periodic organizations of seminars of this nature,” he said.