Cameroun: Une analyse juridique de la mutation constitutionnelle du 10 avril 2008
Konstantia Koutouki & Nicole Florence Matip, (2010) Revue d’Études Francophones sur l’État de Droit et la Démocratie 30.
The controversial constitutional referendum that Mamadou Tandja organised in Niger in early August 2009 confirms a certain tendency in African polities in the last two decades. This has been a practice of authoritarian recuperation of the political liberalisation processes that began on the continent in the early 1990s. Such recuperation generally aims at perpetuating the presidency of autocratic leaders. A variety of less convincing arguments have been used to justify such acts, including the need to allow the leaders to ‘complete the good work they have begun’, and that it is the people that decides who should govern them and, thus, has the right to modify the constitution if the latter goes against that desire. The whirlwind of democratisation or political liberalisation that blew over Africa in the early 1990s saw most African countries adopt new constitutions establishing multiparty systems, allowing for competitive elections at regular intervals. One positive innovation of these constitutions was the inclusion of presidential term limits of two 4-7-year successive terms for the president. But recent years have seen a tendency by a number of African leaders towards the removal or modification of this clause in their constitutions. Of all the regions of the continent, Central Africa has been the champion in this regard. For three (Gabon, 2003; Chad, 2004; and Cameroon, 2008) of the eight such changes on the continent have taken place in the region. Cameroun has changed its constitution three times since 1990. The first revision happened on 23 April 1991; the second one on 18 January 1996; and the latest one on 14 April 2008. It is the latter one that is the subject of this paper, although reference is made to previous ones whenever the need arises. These successive changes to the Cameroonian constitution, particularly with regard to the powers of the president, cast doubt on the principle of the constitution having supremacy over the wishes of the Head of State and it is this issue that this paper deals from a legal perspective.
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