The no-nonsense super-scaled magistrate who serves as Advocate-General of the Supreme Court of Cameroon has pointed out that the suspension of news media by the National Communication Council (NCC) is illegal and inconsistent with the law in force in Cameroon.

Though Ayah Paul acknowledged that the NCC was created by presidential decree, he at once posited that a decree, be it presidential or not, is inferior to a law in the hierarchy of legal norms; it crumbles before a law in the event of conflict between the two.

If what we hear is true, then Peter Essoka and the team that he heads at the National Communication Council, NCC, have only been oscillating between illegality and even greater folly. Lord Justice Ayah Paul Abine, Advocate-General of the Supreme Court of Cameroon, has pointed out that the NCC has no legal authority to suspend media organs in Cameroon.

Referring to the 1990 law on social communication and the presidential decree creating the NCC, instruments which incidentally Peter Essoka and his men have always run to for refuge whenever their decisions are attacked by aggrieved parties, Justice Ayah Paul points out that until a new law that repeals the 1990 law on social communication is passed it is only the Minister of Territorial Administration and not the NCC or the Minister of Communication that has the legal authority to suspend news media in Cameroon.

“The press in Cameroun is regulated by the 1990 law on social communication. Section 17 (1) (new) of the law provides, inter alia, that, where the conduct of a news media is contrary to public order and good morals, the minister in charge of territorial administration may suspend the said media. I have not been privileged to find any other provision of that law providing that some other body has concurrent jurisdiction with the minister in question,” states Justice Ayah Paul on his facebook page.

Ayah Paul makes bold that even though the 1990 law on social communication did create a national communication council and also specified that the organization and functioning of the said council would be determined by executive fiat, there is no legal ground for such executive fiat to repeal an existing law, except otherwise it is taken to parliament and voted as a law, which unfortunately is not what happened to the presidential decree creating the NCC.

Avoiding to invite Peter Essoka to tango into the secret coliseums of legal discuss and practice, Ayah notes: “Without any necessity to go into the substance of the presidential decree, it should be pointed out that, in the hierarchy of legal norms, a law in the technical sense takes precedence over an executive order. In the event of conflict between the two, the law of course prevails…… One may be bold enough to say, without any fear of contradiction whatsoever, that that is the incontrovertible position of the law.”

Pushing further his case, Justice Ayah states that: “it stands to reason, ipso facto, that the jurisdiction of the National Communication Council as spelt out by a (presidential) decree crumbles in the face of the unambiguous law granting to the Minister in charge of Territorial Administration exclusive jurisdiction over the suspension of news media. The council would have had concurrent jurisdiction with the Minister, ratione materiae, only and only if another law had granted the National Communication Council jurisdiction to suspend news media… A decree taken in the furtherance of a law may only hopelessly purport to fly on the same plane with the law; or dastardly venture to contradict it.”

It must be mentioned that the Presidential decree of 23 January 2012 reinforcing, amending and supplementing the 21 June 1991 decree creating the National Communication Council, states clearly in its article 31 that: “this decree repeals all contrary legal provisions, notably the decree no.91/987 of 21 June 1991 bearing on the organization and functioning of the National Communication Council.” No where in the decree was it mentioned that it repeals any part of the 1990 law on social communication.

Concluding therefore, Justice Ayah rules that: “As it is, the suspension of Afrique Media, as of other news media before it, was inconsistent with the law in force; and is, therefore, illegal, if need there is to emphasize in superfluity.”

It should be recalled that very recently Peter Essoka snubbed a suggestion by the Communication Minister, Issa Tchiroma, for the suspension on Afrique Media to be uplifted. Essoka argued that because Afrique Media did not respect the NCC’s suspension to the letter the suspension is maintained. After this legal pounding on Essoka by Ayah, Issa Tchiroma should be laughing and rubbing his hands in his office.

Intriguingly, Ayah has warned that “any member of the National Communication Council snarling and/or smarting from the urge of vendetta may simply be ignoramus.”