Chief SML Endeley, The eruption of a legal chariot

Chief S.M.L Endeley could rightly lay claims to a plethora of attributes. It is therefore hard for me to mention all under the circumstances I am writing this piece. He was a paramount chief of the Bakweris. He was called home by his creator while serving in that distinguished capacity. He was a former Chief Justice of the Southern Cameroons (West Cameroon then).

Prior to that, he was a chemist and most important, a distinguished lawyer and legal luminary. He so much valued his professional legal career to the extent that on retiring from the judiciary, he urged me in my capacity as the then representative of the President of the Bar Council for the South West to approach Hon. Andze Tchoungui who was then Minister of Justice to issue an order permitting him to resume his law practice with the seniority he attained when he was called to the Bar. I successfully promptly executed that mission. The ministerial correspondence attesting to this fact may be found by his family among his records. The distinguished paramount chief and retired chief justice therefore has been called home to meet his ancestors and creator with the professional legal status in which he mesmerized and confounded colleagues and judges with startling wit and brilliance safely placed at the top of the mountain to guide generations unborn. I am so proud to have been the errand boy he chose to make him fulfil that enduring objective.

On or about July 1, 1981, the Fon of Fontem dispatched a delegation of four chiefs to meet Chief Justice Endeley with an unusual request. He wanted traditional dancers he had sent from Bangwa to perform during my swearing in ceremony within the premises of the Court of Appeal in Buea. A distinguished prince himself then, therefore culturally sensitive, Chief Justice Endeley understood the significance of the unprecedented request. He obliged and on July 4, 1981, with full traditional honours, I became the first ever University of Yaounde trained student to be called to the bar in the South West Province as a pupil advocate in the law office of the Hon. B.T.B Foretia in Victoria.

In my legal career, I appeared so many times before Chief Justice Endeley alongside legal giants like Fon Gorgi Dinka, B.T.B Foretia, M.N Weledji, E.E Ebai, F.W Atabong, A.T Enaw, N.T Tabe and P.D Koti. I was therefore a witness to and participant in some of the enduring legal principles enunciated by this legal colossus. They are too many to venture to enumerate. I hope that with the participation of the many lawyers, legal scholars, judges, universities, charities, corporations and the people of the Southern Cameroons for whom he dispensed justice and enunciated these priceless legal principles and jurisprudence a SML Endeley Memorial library will be established to preserve the works of this great man for posterity.

He dominated the legal firmament during the tortious and painful period of annexation of the Southern Cameroons and the imposition of emergency rule. Like a Spartan, he pushed back some of the excesses that were imposed by the reign of terror attendant with emergency rule. The legacy of the common law and the rule of law which the common law lawyers and a majority of Southern Cameroonians are seeking today alongside a return to international legality were enthroned through the resolve, courage, wisdom and clairvoyance of Chief Justice Endeley. Chief Justice Endeley and some of the legal giants I have mentioned herein stood between the oppressor and the people. Chief Justice Endeley knew that in the dispensation of justice as well as governance, the people will always end up wining no matter how long the struggle for justice takes.

His enduring philosophy of justice was succinctly explained in this advice he gave me during my swearing in. That advice has been and remains my guiding philosophy on my pedestal in national and international justice. He said that although everyone knew him and others as judges, the final arbiter of justice was the people whom he called the silent judges. Doctors, he said, make judgements about the therapy they administer to patients in their protected walls of hospital theatres or their medical offices. The administration of justice by judges and lawyers are done in open courts in the full view of the public and the people. The people according to Chief Justice Endeley will always know when justice is done and when it is not. He therefore enjoined me to be alive to this fact throughout my legal career. He advised that compliance with that advice was my only key to success. I have kept faith with that advice and I am eternally grateful.

Hon Chief Justice Endeley made the upholding of the rule of law and equality of all before the law irreplaceable cornerstones of a fair, democratic society. The subsequent erosion of these values irked him and he complained about this in public or in private. He was very frustrated to see the standards he set and the values he enthroned destroyed before his very eyes. Chief Endeley for example was always very punctual to court and all courts in his jurisdiction commenced at 9 am every day. This practice suffered a serious setback when he left. He fought against corruption in all its forms in the judiciary and spoke against this vice publicly and in his comments from the bench. He was against executive and administrative lawlessness and made Divisional Officers, Police and Gendarmes accountable for their actions before the courts of law.

A prominent Nigerian Lawyer, former Minister of Information and Statesman Otunba T.O.S Benson once said that land belongs to people, some alive, some dead and many unborn. This statement accurately captures the importance of land to our individual and collective survival. It will be suicidal for any country, any sane government to leave litigation on this critical life sustaining assert available to most of our people to untrained political operatives and administrators.

Many administrators interpreted the 1974 land ordinance as giving them exclusive jurisdiction to hear all land and land related matters. With this power grab they went on a rampage selling land and established highly corrupt enterprises by which they deprived people of their ancestral and family lands. Chief Justice Endeley put breaks to these acts of institutionalized corruption, thievery and unwarranted brutality against the livelihood of the people. He laid down sound jurisprudence establishing the boundaries between questions of title to land that came within the jurisdiction of the land consultative boards and all other forms of actions concerning land holding, inheritance, administration of trusts, estates and grants etc that fell within the jurisdiction of the court. In so doing, he came to the rescue of the people in time of need.

In many ways he used the power of his office, profession and special gifts to uplift the human condition. His was therefore a fulfilled mission in which we must be grateful and proud of. The history of the development of the common law in Cameroon can never be complete within acknowledging the pioneering contributions of Chief Endeley. His passing on must be equated to an eruption of a legal chariot which indeed he was. He was a personal inspiration to me and many others. He is dead but his works and legacy live on.

May his soul rest in peace.

Chief Charles A. Taku, is currently Lead Counsel with the International Criminal Court, ICC, The Hague.