Renowned human rights lawyer and Vice President of the General Assembly of the Cameroon Bar Association, Barrister Edward Ewule Lyonga, has earned a PhD in Law, after defending a thesis that strongly recommends the abolition of the death penalty in Cameroon, where an estimated 220 inmates are on death row.
The thesis was defended at the University of Buea’s Faculty of Laws and Political Science on May 15 in a three-hour exchange chaired by Professor Sone Patience Munge.
Panel members included the candidate’s supervisor, Professor Nkongho Elizabeth; co-supervisor, Dr. Abilabi Colbert; examiners, Professor Nana Charles and Professor Mikano Emmanuel; and member, Professor Irene Sama-Lang.
Thesis Argues Death Penalty Violates Right to Life
Barrister Ewule Lyonga, a veritable rights defender, said the thesis was informed by Cameroon’s continued uphold of the death penalty despite strong humanitarian arguments from institutions, including the European Union, that it is cruel, inhumane, and violates the fundamental right to life.
Dr. Ewule’s findings indicate that the death penalty law also contradicts the Cameroon Constitution, which guarantees the right to life. He noted that procedural violations in the application of the death penalty in Cameroon violate the UN Convention against Torture, ratified by Cameroon.
Although no one has been executed in the country since 1997, Barrister Ewule maintained that the continued sentencing of convicts to death in Cameroon means the death penalty could be enforced at any time, given it has not been abolished.
The death penalty in Cameroon is sanctioned by the 2016 Criminal Code, 2014 Anti-Terrorism Law, and 2017 Military Justice Code. It is applied to offences such as murder, terrorism, secession, treason, and espionage.
An estimated 220 people are on death row in the country, among them Yaounde-based man Dagobert Nwafo, sentenced earlier this year for killing five-year-old “Bébé Mathis,” and four men convicted for the massacre of seven school children in Kumba in 2020.
“My major finding was that Cameroon is practicing a de facto moratorium — that the death penalty is still part of our law and though there is no international instrument that prohibits the application of the death penalty, the death penalty can be interpreted as a violation of the right to life,” Dr. Ewule said.
“And so we are calling on the state of Cameroon to abolish the death penalty. The Central African Republic nearby has abolished the death penalty. So we can do that,” he added.
His recommendation aligned with a document issue by the World Organisation Against Torture arguing that placing people on death row subjects them to torture, and called on the government to abolish it from national legislation and commute all death sentences.
Panel Praises Candidate’s Mastery
In his research, Dr. Ewule adopted a qualitative research method that involved unstructured interviews, focus group discussions, and a review of several national and international laws bordering on the right to life and the death penalty.
The panel members took respective turns to grill him to assess his mastery of the work, his analytical skills, and the methodology adopted.
The chair, Professor Sone Patience Munge, said the candidate “displayed mastery of the subject matter,” adding that “the literature review and methodology are apt.”
“The subject is so, so topical because it touches on something that is contemporary and it cuts across the whole world. The candidate has displayed great mastery of the subject matter,” she said.
Despite recommending Barrister Ewule for a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Law, Professor Sone noted that some “infelicities” highlighted by the panel in the thesis must be corrected before the work is submitted to the UB library.
The panelists cautioned the candidate to withdraw from being the advocate that he is to becoming an objective researcher, by presenting both the pros and cons of the death penalty, which has been approved by several countries and is used as a means of deterrence to crime.
Senator Hails Work as Enriching Legal Evolution
Present at the defence were several personalities, including lawyers, traditional rulers, rights defenders, academics, journalists, as well as lawmakers like Cameroonian Senator Mbella Moki Charles.
Senator Mbella Moko, a member of the constitutional law committee of the Senate, said the work will “enrich the evolution of the legal process” in Cameroon.
He said he was inspired by the exchange between the candidate and the jury.
For Dr. Barrister Ewule, this PhD thesis is a further springboard to continued human rights advocacy, which has made him a household name in the legal landscape.
He is the founder of Legend Law Offices in Buea, which has been instrumental in the defence of human rights victims, including Antoinette Kongnso, a woman who was arbitrarily arrested in 2020, jailed and put to birth while in detention.
