Origin and Mandate

Staffing and Appointment Procedures

Activities

Funding

Assessment

The commission currently comprises of forty members: Twenty-three "titulary members"[membres titulaires] and seventeen "supplementary members" ["membres suppléants"], including:

· the NCHRF president, who is an independent member;
· Three representatives of the administration, of whom one is a member of the Justice department;
· Two magistrates representing the Supreme Court;
· One representative of each political party represented in the national assembly;
· Two members of the bar;
· Two law professors;
· Four representatives of religious groups;
· One representative of the local councils;
· Two journalists from the public and private press;
· One representative of the government body, the Economic and Social Council;
· Two representatives of women's groups.

Originally there were forty-four members, however four have either died or left the country. Consequently, the alternates are also now generally considered to be full-time members.

Appointments to the commission are made by presidential decree and members are supposed, under article 4(2), to serve a five-year term. In fact, members of the commission were appointed in 1991 at a time when only the ruling CPDM held seats in the national assembly, and have never been replaced, nor have their appointments been formally renewed.62 Some also refused to take their seats, most notably, Pius Njawe, a well-known journalist and editor of the independent daily Le Messager, and prominent jurists such as Joseph Bipoum-Woum and Maurice Kamto, both law professors. They declined to serve on the commission in view of its lack of autonomy and credibility , and were applauded for their stand by other local human rights activists in interviews with Human Rights Watch. One NGO activist observed "all the credible individuals named by the president refused to serve on the commission," and another that Pius Nyawe would have been the only "critical voice" if he had accepted appointment to the commission.63

In principle, the original five-year term of the commission's members expired in 1996. President Biya, whose responsibility it is, has still not appointed any new members. At the same time, the term of the original members has not formally been extended. Given the formal expiry of its members terms of office and the preponderance of government supporters, a significant number of the political opposition and the NGOs now consider the NCHRF to be an illegitimate or even illegal body. The anomaly has also been recognized within the NCHRF, whose executive secretary told Human Rights Watch that the commission had repeatedly urged the government to address the issue and been promised that "a prompt solution" would be found.64 The parliamentary opposition, however, does not seem to share this optimism. According to opposition member Joseph Mbah Ndam, the ruling CPDM has consistently blocked opposition attempts in the national assembly to renew the membership of the NCHRF and to ensure that all parties holding seats in the assembly are represented, in accordance with the 1990 decree.65 The government's intention, according to Joseph Mbah Ndam, is to resist opening up the NCHRF to members of the political opposition even through this breaches the 1990 decree.66

The commissions' standing was further eroded when two of its members were appointed to posts in the president's office, but did not relinquish their positions on the NCHRF. The question of a conflict of interest was recently raised when some commission members accepted nominations to simultaneously serve in positions in the office of the president. Lucy Gwanmesia Doh, the NCHRF's adjunct secretary general, who was appointed to the commission in her capacity as supreme court judge, was recently appointed delegate minister in the office of the president in charge of state inspectorate and control [contrôle supérieur de l'etat], while the commission's vice-president, Gregoire Owona, became delegate minister in the office of the president in charge of relations with parliament. Unsurprisingly, critics such as Joseph Mbah Ndam see this as yet further evidence that the commission is "in the government's pocket."67