Biya orders review of new penal code bill

An article in the new penal code bill giving immunity to serving government ministers allegedly pricked President Biya, prompting an order that the said article, which had literally been hand-clapped into approval by CPDM members of the national assembly, be revised.

The section (127) of the code at the time the bill was adopted by the national assembly on June 22, read thus: “Any judicial, legal or investigating police officer who, in violation of any law conferring immunity, prosecutes, arrests or tries a member of government or of parliament, shall be punished with imprisonment for from 1 (one) to 5 (five) years.”

A source told The Cameroon Journal Thursday, on good authority that while the bill, which had almost scaled through a second reading at the Senate on Wednesday, met with a backlash from the President because of the contentious Article 127. A strong lobby is said to be piling up pressure to the effect that the practice of homosexuality, which still remains criminal in the country, as per another article in the bill under review, be made legal.

The provision in the bill (section 347 paragraph 1) concerning homosexual activities, reads thus: “Whoever has sexual relations with a person of the same sex shall be punished with imprisonment for from 6 (six) months to 5 (five) years and fine of from FCFA 20,000 (twenty thousand) to FCFA 200,000 (two hundred thousand).” Homosexuality, it should be pointed out, remains a crime in 32 other African countries.

We gathered that a plenary session of the National Assembly convened Thursday for the review of the contentious article turned rowdy when SDF parliamentary group leader, Joseph Banadzem Lukong, raised a preliminary objection on grounds that the procedure for the introduction of the amendment was at variance with the standing orders of the house.

It took the intervention of the House Speaker, Cavayé Yéguié Djibril, when he called for the suspension of parliamentary business for one hour.

The deliberations were subsequently postponed to Friday July 1. However, it is expected that the amendment will go through since it is understood to have been occasioned by Biya, the President.

Having jetted back into the country only on Saturday June 25 from a ‘brief private stay’ in Europe, President Paul Biya who left the country on May 29, even before the June session of parliament opened, is said not to have been sufficiently informed about the substance of the amended bill before it was introduced to legislators at the start of this mid-year session.

It should be recalled that the bill No. 989/PJL/AN relating to the new penal code for the country was adopted in plenary at the National Assembly in the evening of Wednesday June 22, amidst fierce calls for rejection.

It was the Bar council that first picked holes in the bill, saying there were a lot of flaws in it. The legal outfit was also vexed by the fact that the government did not make use of their expertise in drafting such an important legal instrument.

In repost, Justice Minister, Laurent Esso, who ‘pushed through’ the adoption of the bill, argued that lawyers had been consulted back in 2011 when the amendment to the bill was being drafted.

However, the lawyers buttressed their fury with the fact that the said consultations, as claimed by the minister, were superficial and not broad-based.

The Bar General Assembly President even went ahead to call for a withdrawal of the bill, suggesting that a commission of experts be constituted in order to examine the dossier.

He had told The Cameroon Journal in a telephone interview: “…The bill should not be rushed. If we had waited for 51 years, we can also wait for two months or one year for something to be better done because the penal code is a document that will guide the comportment and the behaviour of citizens. If we don’t work on it very well, it may have spillover effects.”

As if the vociferous criticism from prominent figures of the Bar and other influential civil society leaders was not enough, lawyers in the towns of Bamenda, Kumba and Mamfe took to the streets to protest their disapproval of the bill when it was approved by members of parliament.

And then a few days later, there were threats of a nationwide protest to be staged by the lawyers if the bill went ahead without some of the articles which were deemed as contentious, reviewed.