Cameroon’s Judicial Council Highlights Growing Distrust in Biya

As Cameroon gears up for the 2025 presidential election, the country’s Higher Judicial Council has become a powerful symbol of growing public distrust in President Paul Biya’s leadership.

Once seen as an important check on executive power, the Council has remained inactive for nearly four years. Its prolonged silence has drawn criticism and reinforced perceptions that key institutions are being sidelined to strengthen Biya’s control over the political system.

Observers argue that the Council’s dysfunction is part of a broader trend in Cameroon, where electoral bodies and the judiciary are increasingly dominated by Biya loyalists. Constitutional changes over the years have also favored the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, further eroding public confidence in the fairness of the country’s political process.

Cameroon’s political system presents the appearance of multiparty democracy, but many say the reality is a tightly managed structure with little room for genuine opposition. Institutions like the Constitutional Council and Elections Cameroon (ELECAM) are widely viewed as extensions of the regime, rather than neutral bodies that guarantee justice and fair play.

To many citizens across both the Francophone and Anglophone regions, the silence of the Higher Judicial Council has come to represent a deeper problem, the decline of democratic governance under Biya’s long rule. With elections approaching, the Council’s passivity only deepens public skepticism about the prospects for meaningful change.