ROLE OF THE MEDIA


THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN CAMEROON


From the colonial era to the multi-party rule, the extent of media freedom in Cameroon has come a long way – with arguably still a further journey ahead. Though legal constraints impose many restrictions on the media in Cameroon, they are invariably necessary in protecting the privacy of not only Members, but also citizens alike. Ultimately, Commonwealth Parliaments should be advocates of the protection of the media as a necessary adjunct to democracy and good governance, argues the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Cameroon.


Hon. Joseph Mbah- Ndam, MP Mr Mbah-Ndam is the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Cameroon. As well as being a Barrister-at-Law, he is also National Legal Adviser to the Social Democratic Front, and a Member of the Pan African Parliament.


Introduction The reasons behind my decision to write on this topic are many and varied. Firstly, in my early days as a young Barrister-at-Law operating within a monolithic party-state, freedom of expression was virtually absent. Any attempt to publish what was contrary to the ideology of the one party at the helm of the state was considered subversion and attracted not only the seizure of the publications but summary trial of the publishers with heavy prison sentences. Yet, the preamble of the Cameroon constitution stated clearly that “the freedom of communication, of expression, of the press…are guaranteed under the conditions fixed by law”. So, as a young lawyer I was a human rights activist and championed the defence of many a journalist that were arrested. When in 1990 the wind of freedom and democracy started blowing from the east and there was the rebirth of multi-party politics in Cameroon, the press became the object of attack from the state as it propagated democratic tenets and misdeeds of the governmental apparatus. As a human rights activist I championed their defence in the courts. I later


20 | The Parliamentarian | 2014: Issue Three - Cameroon


to the west to Great Britain. They administered them respectively as mandated territories of the League of Nations.2


Hon. Joseph Mbah-Ndam, MP


became a Member of Parliament and press freedom has continued to be one of my preoccupations. The role of the media in the


Republic of Cameroon1 is therefore


best elucidated through a historico conceptual presentation. This will constitute the first part of this discourse. The second part will examine the legal constraints on the freedom of the media. Suffice it to state here the territory that makes up the Republic of Cameroon appertained to the Germans before the First World War. When the French and the British defeated the Germans, they shared it between themselves. The major part which lay to the east was attributed to France and the part


The role of the media during the colonial era The extent of press freedom enjoyed by the inhabitants of the two colonial territories depended quite as much on what was obtained in the respective countries of the administering authorities. Indigenous people who had studied in France and Great Britain tended to read every journalistic publication that filtered in from these respective Colonial masters. Radio sets were a rare commodity and so RFI and BBC were listened to only by the infinitely few elite and the administering authorities. Then came the heydays


of revolutionary clamour for independence. There was impetus to the effort of informing the populace of the ills of colonialism and the virtues of independence. The written press became the motive force behind the embryonic political parties and student associations that had suddenly sprung up. The lack of infrastructure for the print media and the absence of a good road network made the


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