Rights, Duties and Responsibilities of the Citizen
This domain tests the content of the Bill of Rights, the limits placed on rights, and the duties that balance them. Scenario questions usually ask you to name the right at stake and then test whether it has been lawfully limited.
Sources of rights
The Bill of Rights is the Preamble of the Constitution, and Article 65 makes the Preamble part of the Constitution. Cameroon has also ratified the ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, which inform interpretation.
Civil and political rights
Dignity; equality before the law for all citizens of either sex; life; liberty and security; the presumption of innocence and the right to be heard by a competent tribunal; freedom of expression, press, conscience, religion and worship; freedom of association, trade unionism, assembly and movement; property; privacy of the home and correspondence; and the right to a lawyer. No one may be punished except under a law in force at the time of the act.
Social, economic and cultural rights
Work, health, education and culture. The Preamble guarantees the child's right to education and makes primary education compulsory; tuition fees in public primary schools were abolished in 2000, and social programmes target vulnerable groups.
Duties and responsibilities
Obey the Constitution and laws, respect the rights of others, defend the Fatherland, pay taxes and contribute to public expenditure, protect public property and the environment, and take part in civic life. Voting is a civic duty; the law does not compel attendance at the polls.
Limits
Rights are exercised subject to respect for the rights of others, public order, morality and the law. Assemblies and processions require prior declaration to the administrative authority, which may ban them for reasons of public order, and a ban can be challenged before the Administrative Court.
Worked example
A group declares a march and the Prefect bans it. The freedom to assemble is constitutionally guaranteed, but its exercise is regulated: the administrative authority may prohibit a gathering that threatens public order, and the organisers' remedy is an action in the Administrative Court to have the banning order annulled. Full marks for stating both the right and its legal limitation.
Traps
Treating rights as absolute. Forgetting that duties are examinable. Saying the Preamble is not legally binding. Confusing rights reserved to citizens (voting, standing for the National Assembly) with rights enjoyed by all residents.