“Every individual shall be entitled to the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms recognised and guaranteed in the present Charter without distinction of any kind such as race, ethnic group, colour, sex, language, religion, political or any other opinion, national and social origin, fortune, birth or any status”. 100. The Complainants submit that Southern Cameroonians are discriminated against by the Respondent State, in various forms. These include under-representation of Southern Cameroonians in national institutions, economic marginalisation through the denial of basic infrastructure, such as roads, persistence high levels of unemployment and illiteracy in Southern Cameroon. It is submitted that Southern Cameroonians are discriminated against in the legal and judicial system. 101. The Complainants submitted further that the company law applied in Southern Cameroon was abolished in favour of the Napoleonic Code upon unification in 1972. They argued that Southern Cameroonians could not register companies whose articles of association were in the English language. 102. The issue for determination is whether the refusal to register the said companies was directly related to the unification of the legal system in 1972, and if it constituted discrimination? Could the 1972 unification prejudice registration of companies after ratification on 18 December 1989? This would be the case only if the unification impacted negatively on the registration of companies after December 1989. The Complainants argue that the refusal to register companies had such an effect. In order for the Southern Cameroonian companies to do business they had to register under the Francophone civil law system. The Respondent State did not dispute this allegation. English is one of the official languages in Cameroon. Southern Cameroonians had a legitimate expectation that the English language could be used to conduct official business, including the registration of companies. The Commission makes a finding that the refusal to register companies established by Southern Cameroonians on account of language amounted to a violation of Article 2 of the African Charter. 103. The Complainants submit further that the ratification of the Treaty for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa, otherwise known as Organisation pour l’Hamonisation des Droits d’Affaires en Afrique (OHADA), has discriminated against the people of Southern Cameroon on the basis of language. OHADA is an instrument harmonising business law amongst French speaking countries in Africa. It states that the language of interpretation and settlement of disputes arising under OHADA shall be French. 104. The Complainants alleged that the ratification of OHADA was discriminatory to individual businesses and business people from Southern Cameroon. At this point we adopt the legal principle that businesses or corporate bodies are legal persons. The Complainants submit that objections against OHADA were ignored, and that companies not registered under OHADA could not open bank accounts in Cameroon. 105. The Respondent State argued that OHADA is not aimed at promoting the superiority of one legal system over the other, but rather to harmonise business law in the contracting states by elaborating simple, modern, common rules aimed at encouraging regional development and growth, setting up appropriate judicial procedures and encouraging arbitration for the settlement of contractual disputes. 106. It states further that other non French speaking countries including Ghana and Nigeria, were undergoing the process of acceding to the OHADA treaty. The Respondent State submitted that it had taken several measures, such as the translation of the OHADA laws into English, with the support of the OHADA Permanent Secretariat and the African Development Bank, and the training of Anglophone and Francophone magistrates at the Ecole regionale superieure de la Magistature in Porto Novo, Republic of Benin. It stated further that the apprehension by the Anglophones was merely a transitory situation. 107. The Commission takes note of the fact that the Respondent State had taken measures to address the discriminatory effects of the ratification of OHADA. Had such measures not been taken upon the ratification of OHADA in 1996, the Commission would not have hesitated to find a violation. The Commission is cognisant of the bilingual nature of the Respondent State and the Western African region, in which the Respondent State finds itself. The Respondent State is from time to time being