The Right Honorable President of Senate,
The Right Honorable Speaker of the National Assembly,
The President of the Economic and Social Council,
The Prime Minister, Head of Government,
The Minister of State, Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seals,
Members of Government here present,
The Dean of the Diplomatic Corps,
The Interim President of the Cameroon Bar Association,
The President of the National Chamber of Sheriff-Bailiffs,
The President of the National Chamber of Notaries Public,
The city Mayor of Yaounde,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Members of the Supreme Court, through my modest voice, appreciate your presence at this Solemn re-opening Session of the Supreme Court, despite your very busy schedules. You are warmly welcome.
This year, on the occasion of the solemn re-opening of the Supreme Court, we have chosen, to share with you a theme pre occupying our citizens, economic operators, financial institutions and investors:
It consists of : The Diminishing value of land certificates in Cameroon.
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A decade ago, the Procureur General Martin RISSOUK A MOULONG, an icon of Cameroonian Magistracy, during a similar occasion in 2012, focused attention on the consecration of land tenure rights in Cameroon (¹). He foreshadowed, the impeding doubt on the possible strength of the certificate enshrining the ownership of real estate in Cameroon.
Today, we are right to question if land certificates are still an indisputable proof of real estate ownership in Cameroon (²)?
In their research in the domain of landed property, Professors Stanislas Melone (³), Paul Gérard Pougoue (⁴) and Dieudonné Alexandre Tjouen (⁵), prolific authors in this domain, when criticising the Torrens system inherited from the colonial era, magnified the value of land certificates, as a legal instrument consecrating real property ownership.
They rightly handed down to generations of students in our universities the definition of land certificate as: “the official certification of real property rights; it is unassailable, inviolable, and final”.
This definition is in line with the law.
In its preamble, the revised constitution of 18 January 1996 consecrates among others, real property rights when it provides:
- RISSOUK A MOULONG (M), Consecration of tenure rights in Cameroon, Solemn reopening 2012.
(2) TADJUGE Willy, The demystification for obtaining land certificates in Cameroon. March 2008
(3) MELONE (Stanislas), La parenté et la terre dans la stratégie de développement au Cameroun, Paris 1972
(4) POUGOUE Paul-Gérard : La famille et la terre, Essai de systématisation du Droit privé au Cameroun. Doctorate thesis, Bordeaux 1977.
(5) Tjouen Alexandre Dieudonné, Droits domaniaux et techniques foncières en Droit camerounais, Economica Paris 1982.
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“Ownership shall mean the right guaranteed every person by law to use, enjoy and dispose of property. No person shall be deprived thereof, save for public purposes and subject to the payment of compensation under conditions determined by law”.