A panel of Cameroon Anglophone Common Law Lawyers appeared skeptical over the recent move made by the Francophone regime to get Southern Cameroons lawyers back to work with one of the lawyers saying at one point that the government’s argument was pretty abstract.

During a teleconference moderated by our London bureau chief, the lawyers who all sued for anonymity questioned Justice Minister, Laurent Esso’s fairness and competence in managing the issues with evidence from the Anglophone lawyers strike connecting it to its detained leaders currently being tried for terrorism.

The lawyers unanimously opined that Biya has not concerted to anything and that it was just an attempt by the Francophone cabinet ministers to calm down the tension already mounting in Southern Cameroons. ‘Biya cannot be announcing those kinds of sweeping changes from a hotel in Swiss and through a poorly organized press conference”.

The Southern Cameroon lawyers have reportedly told the Justice Minister that the recent changes announced by the Biya Francophone regime will not send them back to the courts. The lawyers have made public a list of demands including the release of their colleagues and arrested Anglophones, redeployment of Civil Law magistrates, reconnection of Internet services, implementation of resolutions of Prime Ministers Ad Hoc Commission and the demilitarization of the Anglophone regions of the country.

The Southern Cameroons lawyers say by littering all state universities with Common Law departments is indeed a “nonsensical nonsense.” The lawyers also rejected the merging of Political Sciences and Law under on faculty according to the new plan. However, some moderate Anglophone lawyers have expressed satisfaction on the Biya plan but say it will only be concrete when it is decreed with written material to back it.

By Chi Prudence Asong