BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Before Cameroon gained its independence, the juvenile justice systems in the country’s English- and French-speaking regions were substantially dissimilar.

The French Code of Criminal Procedure of 1868 and the Code D’instruction Criminelle were the two primary sources of French procedural law in juvenile affairs. By decree dated May 22, 1924, this code, which was first introduced into French Equatorial Africa via Sénégal in 1903, was made applicable to Cameroon.  The Decree of 30 November 1828 on special courts for minors, the Decree of 30 October 1835 on the protection of minors, law No. 58/203 of 26 December 1958 on forced labor, and law No. 58/203 of December 1858 on the adoption and simplification of criminal procedure were among the other instruments that were applicable.

The Criminal Procedure Ordinance served as the primary source of procedural law in juvenile justice cases in Anglophone Cameroon. Along with the Children and Young Persons law (cap. 32 of the Nigerian Law of 1958), this law was implemented.  

50 years or so following political independence and reunification. In Cameroon, there were still differences in how juvenile justice was handled. The Cameroon parliament passed a new criminal procedure code in 2005 due to the lack of immediately accessible notional laws of wide applicability and the continuation of concepts, values, and priorities established under several colonial administrations. This in part took the place of the colonial statute governing the administration of juvenile justice.  The section of the code that deals with juvenile justice is a synthesis of the country’s and the previous legislation that applied to this branch of the justice system.  It serves as Cameroon’s first official instrument upon independence. The 2005 Criminal Procedure Code governs juvenile matters in Anglophone Cameroon.

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