UN Gives Paul Biya 180-Day Ultimatum To Release Prisoner

On December 5, in one of the corridors of the Special Criminal Court (TCS), Me Hakim Chergui begins to find the long time. 

To care, he walks silently with his hands crossed back. A few people with whom he motto, the lawyer confided that he was keen to attend this hearing of the case between his client, businessman Achille Benedict Zogo Andela, the public prosecutor for the sole purpose of enforcing a decision against Cameroon by the UN Human Rights Committee.

Rare enough to underline this, the jurisdictional body in charge of the respect of the international covenant on the civil and political rights gives a 180 days deadline to the Cameroonian justice to give back its freedom to Mr. Zogo Andela, imprisoned in the central prison of Yaoundé since March 2011 for a hijacking case related to the exploitation of 20 ships purchased by the State of Cameroon.

UN Gives Paul Biya 180-Day Ultimatum To Release Prisoner

This is the first time since its creation in 2013 that this committee has ordered the CHT to release a person prosecuted for embezzlement. "The Zogo Andela case will undoubtedly be one of the most important cases that your jurisdiction will have to judge," Chergui told the judges on 5 December. The latter returned their decision for December 6th. At the time of going to press, this decision was still awaited.

Be that as it may, at the end of the hearing on December 5, the accused did not hide his joy. After seven years behind bars, Achille Benoit Zogo Andela sees for the first time the end of his ordeal. Since the beginning of this case, he has always claimed his innocence.

And tired of being able to convince the Cameroonian magistrates, the businessman seized by a communication of October 28, 2014 the Human Rights Committee of the UN.

It was not until 8 November 2017 that this supranational body acknowledged that several irregularities vitiate the procedure. But the committee especially recognizes that the detention of the businessman is arbitrary. And that is why he asks for his "immediate release".

Constitution

The question that is now teasing the minds is whether Cameroonian justice can ignore this injunction. For the accused's lawyers, it is not possible. And for good reason: Cameroon ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, June 27, 1984. It is also one of the few countries to have ratified Additional Protocol No. 1 the same day. 

Article 45 of the 1996 Constitution stipulates that: "Treaties or international agreements that have been duly approved shall, from the moment of their publication, have a higher authority than the laws, subject, for each agreement or treaty, to its application by the other part ". Clearly, the advice of Mr. Zogo Andela is convinced that under the terms of the constitution,

On compensation for violations of his rights, "Mr. Zogo Andela is entitled to request that it be allocated the sum of 70 billion CFA francs constant", can we read in the request provided by Me Chergui to the judges of the TCS .

To justify this sum, he explains that "Mr. Zogo Andela was, at the time of his arrest, a businessman, honorably earning a living and paying, because of his high incomes, regularly all his taxes. For seven years, he has been without resources and, as his companies have no business, he is unable to find new ones in the short term. "