Opening the annual meeting of the heads of courts of appeal on Thursday, Laurent Esso drew the attention of legal practitioners to the fact that they should not deviate from legal channels.
This was one of the three topics at the centre of the work at the annual meeting of the heads of courts of appeal which opened Thursday in the conference room of the Ministry of Justice.
Due to some sort of confusion observed in the opinions on the ways of appeal, the Minister of State, Minister of Justice, keeper of the seals was keen to focus on the mechanisms put in place by the Cameroonian legislature "that the appeal against a judicial decision is examined by the competent court."
Speaking therefore to twenty heads of courts of appeal (presidents and attorneys general), Laurent Esso was clear: "remedies shall be exercised in the registries of the courts by those who have a different thesis that is accepted by the judge."
An approach, which in the opinion of the keeper of the seals, has nothing to do with "these so-called remedies aimed at opinion, contributing to an indecent manipulation, denigrating the courts and magistrates, distorting the trial at the tribune, forgetting the dignity to be observed before the judiciary."
Speaking therefore to his fellow judges, he invited them to give little interest to those remedies that do not meet the channels established by the legislature.
One point on which they must however fully dwell, is the fact that some procedures are committed by members of the legal profession, by persons required to that effect, by the courts or judicial officers.
For the keeper of seals, "compensation for acts committed by them is attributed to the costs of justice in the form of honorary, disbursements or taxes." He recalled the difficulty of the implementation of the inter-ministerial circular of February 13, 2014, which laid down a procedure of administrative control, accounting control and regulations of legal costs.
"So let's look at the problem by stressing that the responsibility of all involved can be engaged when the regulations have failed to protect the public coffers."
The third focus was on the work that dealt with procedures for recovery of pecuniary convictions handed down by the criminal courts. "Monetary convictions appear to be lost from view, especially when the body constraints are executed," said Laurent Esso.
There is no question today "to take into account the fact that the non-recovery of pecuniary convictions deprives the State of an important source of income." The ceremony was however, held in the presence of Alexis Dipanda Mouelle, first president of the Supreme Court.
