A two-day workshop that started October 28 in Yaounde ends today.

While presenting a defence submission in court on behalf of the State, representative of the administration often showcase lapses and differences which at times cause the State to lose certain law suits. The Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation (MINATD) wants authorities to henceforth tackle legal proceedings in an identical manner by following a particular procedure when presenting a defence submission in court or when giving legal advice to any situation at stake.

This is one of the reasons why a two-day workshop began yesterday, October 28, 2014 in Yaounde to upgrade the legal skills of Directors of Legal Affairs Departments in governor’s offices in the ten regions and First Assistant Senior Divisional Officers from the Centre, South and East Regions on the defence of the State’s Interests before any administrative court throughout the country. While opening the workshop, the Secretary General of MINATD, Pierre Essomba reiterated that the workshop is within routine training programmes at the ministry aimed at impacting experts with legal skills on exactly how to go about legal matters brought against the State especially during this era of decentralisation. Before the creation of administrative courts, all complaints against the State were channelled to the administrative bench of the Supreme Court based in Yaounde. The decentralisation scheme now requires each governor to designate a legal affairs expert in his region to handle any case that concerns his region and defend the interest of the State in that region.

During the workshop, it was revealed that there are cases happening in administrative courts which require the State to be represented. During such matters, each participant at the seminar is expected to present a legal defence submission especially when there are litigations by individuals against the State in court or during a pre-litigation complaint during which his expertise is needed to resolve the problem amicably at the level of the administration. As such, for two days, participants will gain skills on how to go about handling such litigations.