Appointments to ELECAM are inconsistent with the law

The ELECAM states unambiguously that the members of ELECAM shall be chosen “from the midst of independent personalities…”. The appointment of well-known and high-ranking members of a particular political party therefore violates the law

By Hon. Ayah Paul Abine, MP for Akwaya

That respect for the law is fundamental to the orderliness and development of every community is a fact too notorious to dwell upon. Such respect is in the interest of all citizens, and is vital beyond contradiction.

Let us imagine for a moment that some drivers in Douala decided to keep left some day contrary to the Highway Code. The resultant chaos would be unbearable, and even fatal. That is why when some almighty Cameroonian, fancying that he has bought this country from God and the rest of us are his tenants-at-sufferance, said that he could flout the Constitution of the Republic with impunity because “law is made by man”, and Cameroonians applauded him, one could not help wondering whether Cameroonians are of unsound mind; or of average intelligence; or they are the epitome of intellectual dishonesty. The temptation was to settle on the last alternative banking on our celebrated consecutively-double winning of the international trophy for putrid mentalities.

Little wonder then when one hears some intelligent Cameroonians recite even today and with grotesque effrontery mob-verses from raw regurgitation about the legality and constitutionality of the appointment of the members of ELECAM by the President of the Republic.

Section 8 of the law on ELECAM states unambiguously that the members of ELECAM shall be chosen “from the midst of independent personalities…” Being an independent personality is a condition precedent to the appointment. In other words, it is the fact of being independent that qualifies the person to be appointed. Being an independent personality is not a condition subsequent so that the person appointed reserves the discretion to resign in order to become independent. That assertive statement is not even elementary law. It is within the comprehension of the ordinary man who has acquired only some little scholarship in the English language. What is honourable for anyone with “reputed…intellectual honesty”, which is one of the legal qualifications for anyone to become a member of ELECAM, is to resign the appointment once the person knows, let alone, admits that he/she was not an independent personality before and at the time of appointment.

That section of the law equally provides that, to qualify to be appointed to ELECAM, the person must be of “reputed…neutrality”. If the requirement of neutrality were to be subsequent to the appointment so that resignation from a partisan position would remedy the incapacity, then the word reputed would be out of place here. No future state can be said today to be reputed: it is as easy as that.

From simple reasoning not too tantalizing to nursery school kids, therefore, any person, who, at the time of the appointment, occupied a prominent place in a political party, is NOT neutral, let alone of reputed neutrality. Any such person would automatically resign his appointment if he/she is of “reputed… intellectual honesty”.

It is not superfluous to mention here that the section of the law under consideration also makes it mandatory for the President of the Republic to appoint only after “consultation with political parties represented in the National Assembly and civil society”. Even quack lawyers know that, by the canons of interpretation, the law does not intend an absurdity.

If this mandatory provision meant that, after such consultation, the President of the Republic, in making the appointment, could totally disregard opinions expressed at the consultation, then the law intended an absurdity; and that would be at variance with the said canon of interpretation. If on the other hand, after such consultation, only the opinions of one of the parties had to be considered, such consultation was essentially nugatory, and the eventual consideration vitiated the mandatory provision of the law on ELECAM.

From that brief analysis, the most decorous way one can put it is that the appointment of the members of ELECAM is inconsistent with the law; and I opine that a court of law would so hold. That position remains unaffected by anyone banging into a microphone, like a rabid dog, curious opaque-blanket submission on the “benefit of the doubt”; or some grilled philosopher pleading the case for endorsing illegality in despondent subjugation.

In the final analysis, no-one knowledgeable in the law; and no-one of reputed intellectual honesty would even argue that resigning from his/her party after unlawful appointment would legalize, much less, legitimize such appointment. The only option open to any such person would be to humbly tender his/her resignation from ELECAM with reasonable dispatch!