North West: English, French To Be Better Used in Judicial Affairs

Court officials in charge of carrying out judicial investigations, hearing of cases, trials and passing judgements, National Gendarmerie and National Security Judicial Police and investigation officers will henceforth better serve users of the North West Region in English and French which are the official languages of Cameroon with equal status. This follows the three-day mission of the members of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism in Bamenda from May11-13, 2026 during which they held awareness creation working sessions with court, National Gendarmerie and Police officials on the implementation of the Law of 24 December 2019 on the promotion of English and French which are Cameroon’s two official languages. The Commission’s team was led by Itoe Benjamin Mutanga with another member being Dr Ngambo Fondjo Pierre Vincent. Be it at the Court of Appeal, National Gendarmerie Legion and the Regional Delegation of National Security, the team leader stated that they were out to celebrate and monitor the use of bilingualism. He stated that the urgency for the respect of the constitutional provision of English and French as Cameroon’s two official languages with equal status came after protests with regards to the dominance of the French language. He said the constitutional provision had no compelling instrument and after the creation of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multicultural in 2017 in charge of promoting bilingualism, government enacted the law of 24 December 2019 to promote the use of the two official languages. The law has to be scrupulously implemented in public and semi-public institutions, as well as regional and local authorities. Users of the services of these institutions must be served in languages of their choice. To ensure better expected results, in the different places, Dr Ngambo Fondjo Pierre Vincent presented the law on the promotion of the English and French as the country’s official languages with equal status. He focused more on the sections of the law that concern the courts, National Gendarmerie and the Police corps. After the presentations there were information sharing sessions during which the officials of the different institutions presented difficulties mainly hinging on the means of training staff on the two languages, means and lacunae that have to be filled in the law. They respectively made proposals the commission member would take to their hierarchy for study and consideration....