Uniform Act Project Of Statute Of Judicial Officers
It was five years ago that was decided, at the time of the council of the presidents of the national chambers of the Ohada zone which was held in Dakar, to launch a vast deliberation aiming at evaluating the advisability of promoting a project of a harmonized statute of the judicial officers for the countries of the Ohada zone.
From L. to R.: Leo Netten, John Marston, Mathieu Chardon, Ana Lovrinov, Georg Stawa, Claire Notari, Geert Lankhorst, Karl-Heinz Brunner, Fokion Georgakopoulos, John Stacey
After several years of studies and dialogue, the interested presidents were to come in April 2007, at the time of the council in Abidjan, to a unanimous agreement on the text of a uniform statute.
This project was transmitted to the secretariat of Ohada in Yaounde, as well as to the presidency of Ohada (Niger at the time), in order to implement it by way of adoption of a uniform act.
Unfortunately, the text was to be rejected by the Council of the Ministers of justice in its meeting of 12 December 2007 in Niamey.
However, the arguments developed in the proposal were largely inspired by the provisions of the treaty of 17 October 1993 which fixes the framework of the installation, for the Member States left of Ohada, of a Business Law likely to support the development of companies and trade.
The project which had been prepared took account of the multiple provisions postulating for a reinforcement of legal security, development of the economic activities and encouragement to investment.
Moreover, the project of statute is aligned on a certain number of devices relating in particular to the efficiency in the enforcement of court decisions, legal security, recovery of debts and training of auxiliaries of justice (preamble to the treaty), the latter being besides for a long time committed (ten years now) with Ufohja of which we may recall that the seminar in Lome (9-11 April 2008) constituted the 26th session.
Further still, beside the uniform act on enforcement procedures of 1 October 1998,wasn't the prospect to have a body of judicial officers operating in a uniform way from Dakar to Brazzaville likely to promote the unifying treaty of Ohada and in addition to constitute a significant element in favour of legal security?
The incomprehension of the judicial officers in the decision of rejection of the Council of the Ministers is strong as this posture is based on the “nonconformity of the project of statute with the treaty of Ohada” which is, as we have seen, completely unfounded.
In any assumption, the conference in Lome marked the determination of the presidents to pursue their objectives, undoubtedly, in order to give a better explaining of their initiative, and to have their request re-examined very soon.
