INTRODUCTION

From an overall analysis of public financial governance in Cameroon, emerges a trend towards the amplification of the movement to penalize public finances. From this perspective, one notices that the movement to penalize public decision-makers directly affects administrative action. Through this questioning, it is the whole functioning of the administration which is concerned and the adoption of several reforms attests to the adaptation of the administration to this movement of penalization unceasingly increasing within the framework of the local finance^[1]. Indeed, it is not contradictory to think that the elongation of financial criminal justice stems from the dynamics in the policy of criminalization of public management in Cameroon^[2]. It certainly reflects the desire to strengthen the framework for the protection of local public funds dear to the development of local authorities. Clearly, the lengthening of financial criminal justice in the context of this research stems from the permanent involvement of the courts of first instance (Section One), and from the mitigated though overall appreciable rehabilitation of the Tribunal Special Criminal (Section Two).

SECTION ONE: THE PERMANENT INVOLVEMENT OF THE COURTS OF FIRST INSTANCE

The courts of first instance, in particular those of modern law, have a permanent involvement in the practice of judicial control of public finances in general, and local finances in particular. Prima faci, it must be recognized that this reality testifies to the growing penalization of public management and more to the policy of accountability of local public managers before the criminal judge. It does not therefore constitute a specificity of the Cameroonian system of control of the management of local public funds. Thus in France, one witnesses what is now agreed to be called a ‘drift’ of criminal law which, combined with the evolution of the frameworks of local political action and the modification of the roles and the resulting responsibilities, particularly affects local elected representatives^[3].

Beyond public accountants, local elected officials and local managers are directly concerned through any criminal liability that may be brought against them involving anything that may lead to the intervention of the criminal courts. Indeed, the jurisdictions of the judiciary, and this in a non-exclusive way, obey a pyramidal organization having at the top the Supreme Court^[4]. The latter is the supreme jurisdiction of the judiciary in principle, whose fundamental mission is to standardize the interpretation of the rule of law by the lower courts^[5]. Thus, the operational perspective of the functional framework of traditional criminal courts in terms of judicial control of local finances, leads to the preliminary intervention of the court of first instance (I), and the intermediate action of the High Court (II).

[1] DOMENACH J. M., ‘L’action administrative face a la responsabilite penal des decideurs publics’, in Politique et Management Public, Vol.19, No 1, 2001, p. 43-57.

[2] DE CASTELNAU R., ‘Loi du 10 Juillet 2000 et penalisation de la gestion publique, Trompe l’oeil ou reelle avancee?’, Revue Administrative, Octobre 2000, No 10, p. 15.

[3] GUERIN-LAVIGNOTE E., KERROUCHE E., ‘Les elus locaux et la dimension penale de la responsabilite publique: entre responsabilite et culpabilite’, Politiques et Management Public, Vol. 19, no 3, 2001, p. 139-158.

[4] Le Cours de Cassation, in the case of France.

[5] PERROT R., Institutions Judicaires, Paris, L.G.D.J- Montchrestien, 14^th edition., 2010, p.95.