Officials of the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms led by its Chairperson, Dr Divine Chemuta Banda on May 26, 2014 started a five-day inspection visits to the Kondengui Prison, detention cells at the Court of First Instance and High Court in Yaounde and the detention cell at the Secretariat of State for Defence to dialogue with officials, assess detention conditions and finally make recommendations to government.
The main objectives of the inspection visits are to promote the respect of the rights to equitable judgement of detainees, cause the liberation of some illegally detained people in order to reduce the high number of people in detention cells. During the visits, the Human Rights Commission officials also cross checked registers to ascertain the information in registers, questioned detainees on the reasons for their detention and appreciate their treatment in relation to constraints, torture, deadlines and access to justice.
The other objectives were to report preoccupying cases to authorities with the competence to solve them, cause to some extent the freeing of people arbitrarily detained and evaluate the implementation by the Yaounde Central Prison authorities of the presidential decree of February 18, 2014 commuting and remitting prison sentences.
After discussing with the State Counsel of the Yaounde Court of First Instance, Jean Pierre Bifouna Ndongo and the First Assistant State Counsel of the Yaounde High Court, Onana Marthe and visiting the detention cells in the courts, the Human Rights Commission Chairman made an appraisal. “What we have seen are the authorities concerned doing their best to stay within the rules. We have seen that the procedures are well in place.”
The register of detainees indicated 34 people, 33 of them men and one female who were not locked up in the cell due to their conditions. Concerning the six detainees at the Secretariat of State for Defence, Dr Chemuta Banda said detention conditions were good and the only problem was the duration.
For the sake of efficiency, officials of the Human Rights Commission have been divided into two groups. They will on Friday, May 30, 2014 finalise and make public the report of their findings in the detention centres.
