engaged in delaying tactics to avoid taking a principled position on the Bakweri land problem. It has known, for very long time, about the violations of Bakweri land rights and thus had "ample opportunity" to reverse the situation consistent with its obligations under the Banjul Charter. 25. The Complainant further argues that during this entire period, it petitioned the successive Cameroonian governments for restitution. It met with the various officials of the Republic, including the Prime Minister and the Assistant Secretary General at the Presidency, but to no avail. The Complainant holds thus that any further negotiations to seek domestic relief will merely prolong the resolution of the Bakweri land problem. 26. The Complainant alleges that even if the exhaustion of domestic remedies rule is given its most restrictive meaning, requiring it to go through the courts of Cameroon would be futile. No judge in Cameroon will risk his/her career, not to mention his/her life, to handle this politically sensitive matter, as the matter implicates the crown jewel of a Privatisation Programme the Government is determined to see through, pits the Bakweri people against a Prime Minister and Head of Government as well as an Assistant Secretary General at the Presidency, both of whom are Bakweri but non elected officials holding their offices at the pleasure of the President, and places the Government in a face off with a politically-conscious minority tribe that has refused to stay quiet and watch its ancestral lands being sold to non-natives. The Complainant claims that experience has shown that such is not the kind of politically-sensitive litigation that a judiciary firmly under the control of the President would like to handle and it is a contest in which the Complainant is not going to receive a fair hearing. 27. The Complainant concludes that under the circumstances asking the Bakweri to seek domestic relief will merely prolong the agony of the Bakweri in seeking a resolution to their land problem. 28. In its 4th February 2004 further written submissions on the admissibility of the complaint, the Complainant contends that BLCC is the accredited agent of the Bakweri People on whose behalf it filed the present communication, that the complaint is not pending before any other international tribunal, that the allegations contained therein are backed by documentary evidence, and that there is no insulting language used. In elucidating further on Article 56.5 of the African Charter, the Complainant alleges that the thrust of the provision therein is to check whether an effective legal remedy exists in Cameroon of which the Complainant could avail itself. The Complainant alleges that no such remedy existed and that special circumstances excused it from compliance with the exhaustion requirement. 29. One, the Complainant alleges that in Cameroon, the judiciary is neither free nor impartial with the result that justice tends to be dispensed in a discretionary manner thereby making recourse to domestic avenues of redress uncertain, impractical and undesirable. Second, the Complainant alleges that the Government of Cameroon has had ample time to resolve the Bakweri Land Claims problem but has only failed to do so, instead, has effectively blocked inferior decision-making organs from taking on the matter. 30. The Complainant proceeded to argue that in deciding whether BLCC has made full use of the available legal remedies, attention ought to be focused on what in the Cameroon context passes for effective remedies. It alleges that the legal and political context in which justice is administered in Cameroon is one where the President wields extraordinary powers. It is a unified Executive wherein the last word in domestic remedies whether of an administrative or legal nature in the Cameroonian context is the President of the Republic. Presidential decisions carry a kind of res judicata on other state institutions and organs. 31. The Complainant argues that Cameroon's judiciary lacks independence. To substantiate this, it cites the 1999 and 2001 Human Rights Reports on Cameroon produced by the United States Department of State, and a newspaper report. Although the President is assisted by a Higher Judicial Council in the appointment of members of the bench and officials of the legal department, judicial officers serve at the President's pleasure. Besides, the Judicial Council is completely under the control of the President who appoints the majority of its members and presides over all its meetings. 32. The Complainant avers that the supremacy of the Presidency and its dominance of the judiciary give rise to a peculiar form of de facto Executive "pre-emption" of decision-making by subordinate state organs, regardless of whether there is an actual conflict between them or not. Presidential "pre-emption" of decision-making at all levels and in all areas, judicial as well as non-judicial, operates in much the same way as an ouster clause which bars "the ordinary courts from taking up cases placed before the special tribunals or entertaining any appeals from the decisions of the special tribunals"2 . The Bakweri case is not entirely dissimilar to ACHPR Communication 137/94 et al. as the presidential "pre-emption" ousts the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts thus depriving the Complainant of effective domestic relief. 33. The Complainant further reminds the Commission that the relief it is seeking is for the Government to acknowledge in writing its legal title to the Bakweri Lands, which can only come from the authority that issued the Privatisation Decree of 1994, which is none other than the President of the Republic. The later 3