Since the results were published on June 21, more than 2,000 of the 5,000 candidates who took the exam have protested and denounced irregularities.

More than 2,000 of the 5,000 candidates who sat the Cameroon Bar Association entrance exam a few months ago have appealed to the Ministry of Justice to cancel the results and have even asked the Head of State to intervene.

Their complaints read: “The organisational conditions were not good. The exams started at 11am, finished at 2pm, started again at 11.30pm and finished at 4am. Regarding the publication of the results, the texts state that in order to be eligible, one must have 10/20. However, it is clear that the results were not published in order of merit, but in alphabetical order. This allowed a certain amount of disorder and manipulation”. Dieudonné Tedjisse, the collective’s spokesman, also mentions the case of a person who was admitted after the written tests, although she was not a candidate and had been on the list for at least twenty years.

On the other side, the president of the Bar Association, Barrister Mbah Eric, refutes these accusations: “Regarding the allegations of corruption, I would like to say with certainty that nothing of the kind has happened. Moreover, we are doing everything we can to reduce the impact of corruption. The unsuccessful candidates are now awaiting the outcome of their appeals.

It should be noted that the last bar exam took place in February 2014. Successful candidates were sworn in in January 2015. A first wave was admitted to the bar exam in 2018. A second wave was admitted in 2020.