Lawyer charged, bailiff convicted in Limbe court

It was a very dramatic scene at the Limbe Court of First Instance, on Wednesday, July 23, when the hunter became the hunted, as a bailiff who had summoned for justice ended up being charged to pay damages or serve a prison term.

Barrister Frederick Awah was charged before Magistrate Tatsi Tayi Theophilus, alongside three others, for offending Section 259 of the Penal Code, which talks about the punishment of issuing a false medical certificate.

The Accused was defended by 17 lawyers, headed by Senior Barrister Henry Ngale Monono.

During the trial on Wednesday, a preliminary objection was raised by Barrister Besong Enow Tambe on behalf of the accused, Frederick Mbeng Awah. The Learned Barrister submitted charging Bar Frederick to court was defective in that, it failed to mention all the particulars of the Summons, and that, the English of the case he made was bad and as such highly prejudicial to their client.

The leader of the defence counsel, Barrister Monono, associated himself totally with the brilliant Submission of his younger colleague, and further added that the Magistrate had the duty to uphold the laws, mores, customs and cultural heritage of Anglophone Cameroonians.

The Learned Magistrate, Tatsi Theophilus, upheld the Submission by the lawyers, and lamented that the bailiff who was a Francophone could not master the English language properly, and that for the fact that bailiffs not haven been paid for six months, may be, could not employ the services of an English language personnel to document his claims.

Thus, in accordance to section 65 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the Magistrate ordered the bailiff, Sop Fonkoua Blandine, was fined to pay a sum of FCFA 57000, being the cost of the Summons which she negligently prepared, or serve a prison term of six months.

The learned Magistrate ordered that the bailiff be served with the ruling. Lawyers lamented the fact that out of the 29 bailiffs appoint by the last Presidential Decree two months ago, there wasn't even a single Anglophone.