Decree on appointment of Notaries Public: When once bitten is not twice shy!.

That, apart from the bijural implications, the decree if implemented, will also cut a deep hole in the pockets of lawyers practicing in the two Regions, already a financially unfriendly environment. The lawyers have, however, been protesting in dispersed ranks. 

The Guardian Post, in its edition of yesterday, published the reaction of a former magistrate and legal authority, Dr Paul Chiy, in which he pointed out in six points that the decree fails to accommodate the core features of Cameroon’s bijural framework and entrenches Regional legal identities.

Its insensitivity lies not only in intent, but in structure: a form of legal design that bypasses foundational instruments, misreads the configuration of legal education and practice, and imposes rigid centralisation in a system that remains constitutionally plural.

In the first place, he noted that: "Article 68 of the 1996 Constitution preserves regional legal traditions that predate reunification. The Southern Cameroons legal heritage, rooted in the Common Law, includes the lawyer-notary model, in which advocacy and notarial functions coexist. Decree No. 2025/316 enacts a uniform institutional model that abolishes this hybrid role, without reference to the constitutional continuity clause. This creates a doctrinal inconsistency: the decree operates as if the constitutional preservation of pre-existing legal orders has lapsed, when in fact it remains binding”.

On the second point, he argued that the "Cameroonian legal hierarchy recognises decrees as subordinate to statutes and the Constitution. The 1990 Bar Law and the 2019 Law on Regional Authorities are legislative instruments; both preserve Anglophone lawyer-notarial practice and require regional consultation for legal reforms affecting special-status regions. Decree No. 2025/316, issued without consultation, seeks to amend or override these laws by executive fiat. This inversion of hierarchy renders the decree constitutionally and procedurally insensitive, as confirmed by legal authorities on record".

His third point is that: "By requiring all future notaries to be trained at ENAM under a civil law curriculum, the decree excludes common law legal education as a valid pathway to notarial competence. It ignores the structural reality that common law lawyers are trained and licensed to perform notarial functions under their own system of legal reasoning”. 

As for the fourth point, it disregards the Anglophone legal training and a 2014 resolution by the Cameroon Bar Association calling for permanent recognition of the lawyer-notary model.

The fifth anchors notaries to courts of First lnstance. 

In practical terms, this implies that rural and peri-urban populations, such as those in Akwaya, Wum or Nkambe, must travel to distant Regional headquarters, for basic notarial services. 

The geographic rigidity ignores infrastructural deficits and the logistical realities of the legal marketplace in Anglophone Cameroon. 

It effectively “creates legal deserts by design, thereby marginalising communities from equal access to justice".

On the sixth point, the former magistrate wrote that: "Section 328 of Law No. 2019/024 requires prior consultation with regional assemblies for all normative reforms affecting special status regions. No such consultation occurred prior to the promulgation of Decree No. 2025/316. This failure nullifies the procedural legitimacy of the decree within its intended regions of operation. The decree is not merely insensitive- it is ultra vires in scope, insofar as it purports to govern without fulfilling statutory preconditions”.

Lastly, "The decree adopts a civil law conception of the notary as a public official engaged in ex-officio authentic acts. It then exports this model to a legal culture where notarial work is fundamentally private, client-oriented, and judicially supervised. This transplant fails to account for functional divergence across legal traditions. As a result, the decree replaces a working system with one that is alien to its host context; without safeguards for transitional jurisprudence or differentiated application”. 

His well researched arguments are in line with those of other lawyers, who have commented in the media individually questioning: “Why would Biya sign this bad decree on notaries at this time? They know this is a hot potato, which can split the country. Has someone decided to light this fire against national unity?”

“The decree is against our Special Status legislation, therefore it’s contrary to the constitution. How can the State tell you that you can no longer practice your profession?"

As many of the lawyers practicing in the North West and South West Regions have recommended, the decree should be abrogated, and if there is the need to regulate the services of Public Notaries, to ameliorate the quick, fair and impartial court delivery of justice, lawyers in the two Regions should be consulted, to avoid another protest. A word to the wise, they say, is sufficient.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3520 of Thursday July 31, 2025