Douala, 12 April 2017
Policy Paper:
« The challenge of regional integration and incorporation of regional normative instruments, in Cameroon’s bilingual and bi jural context: the case for a national process for translation of regional normative laws, and a specialized Centre for the study of regional business law, in English ».
As part of the process of identifying the challenges and implementing solutions to the concerns raised by legal practitioners in the regions of Cameroon where English is the principal language used by the population, this analytical paper addresses one of the structural causes of the difficulty in ensuring that legal texts are available in both official languages, and especially in English. The paper identifies one of the root causes of this challenge as the process of regional integration which Cameroon has embarked upon, and which entails the increasing reception of regional instruments, or regional community law, as a primary source of law in Cameroon.
The paper analyses the impact of this normative function of sub-regional bodies and groupings of States which Cameroon belongs to (OHADA, CEMAC, UMAC, COBAC, CIMA), which do not always have the same language characteristics as Cameroon. These bodies sometimes engage in norm-setting exclusively in French, whereas Cameroon does not have a permanent institutional arrangement to render the norms thus developed into English. As measures to mitigate the specific consequences for Cameroon of participation in these sub-regional bodies, the paper calls for the establishment of a permanent national institutional arrangement for rendering regionally-derived texts in English, as well as the creation of a specialized Centre dedicated to the study in English, of regional business law arising from community and regional instruments. Such a Centre could be attached to the Law Faculty of a University established in the English-speaking tradition.
Best regards.
Author: Center for Law and Public policy (CLPP)