Le régime juridique des étrangers au Cameroun

A) Normal exits

Article 29 of the law N°97/012 recommends to any titular immigrant of a residence permit or resident to take an exit visa when it leaves the own territory. That is also worth for the temporary visitor whose visa of entry is not valid any more.

The request of the exit visa must answer the one of the categories of following exits :

- Simple exit (the recipient of this visa is very foreign which leaves the own territory definitively.

- Exit outward journey and return (visa of which the period of validity is not higher than three months)  for any foreigner admitted in stay or as reside, which makes the request of it.

- Left three months, with several exits and entries, for any foreigner admitted in stay or as reside, which makes of it the request and whose validity of the residence permit is higher than three months.

- Left six months, with several exits and entries, for any foreigner admitted in stay or as reside, having carried out at least three exits of the territory, during the year which precedes the request and whose validity of the residence permit is higher than six months.

- Left one year, with several exits and entries, for any foreigner admitted in stay or as reside, having carried out at least four exits of the territory, during the year which precedes the request and whose validity is higher than one year.

This law specifies in addition that the State guarantees in theory repatriation during the delivery of the visa of entry. Exceptionally, the foreigner concerned regularizes his situation in briefs times, in fact, three months under the terms of article 31 of the law of 1997.

When the foreigner is constrained from to go away, it is subjected to another mode.

B) Exceptional exits

They are actually the result of the sanctions which the administration takes against the clandestine foreigners. Indeed, they did not comply with the legal provisions relating to immigration and the stay. Such sanctions can also beings applied to any expatriate author of infringements. We distinguish in particular the exits because of repression, taken back at the border and expulsion.

Under article 32 (1), repression is the administrative measurement taken against any foreigner who presents himself at the entry of the own territory without to have observed the conditions required. It must leave immediately the territory like specifies it article 33 (1). Indeed, the official authorities require abroad to make half-turn. Repression applies only in the event of attempt at terrestrial or maritime illegal immigration.

As indicated by article 34, taken back at the border is also an administrative measurement. It obeys however the legal procedure envisaged in articles 35 to 38. Indeed, it aims at the foreigner entered clandestinely in Cameronian territory, whatever the way used (air, maritime or terrestrial) and there remaining irregularly. This measurement also applies to that which did not respect the production times the guarantee of repatriation. However, the administration must notify it to him so that it can be prevailed of the legal guarantees in the event of dispute (to profit from the exercise of the rights of defense inter alia) to ask, in particular, its cancellation in the 48 hours.

Expulsion is the administrative measurement taken against a foreigner whose presence is considered to be undesirable on the own territory either because the aforementioned presence puts in danger the law and order and the moralities, or because it is condemned definitively to a sorrow at least equal to one year of imprisonment without deferment or for a bound infringement, for example, with the legislation on the illicit trade of the narcotics. However, the law of 1997 specifies that the procedure of expulsion should be used only on a purely individual basis. So collective expulsions are prohibited.

Relative to the refugees, articles 31 and 33 of the above mentioned law conformed to the Convention of Geneva of 1951. Thus, it is interdict at the State to apply penal sanctions to the irregular refugees arriving directly of a territory where their life and freedom are threatened. That is justified by the fact that, generally, an individual being in this situation of insecurity can only enter the foreign territory irregularly to preserve. Moreover, it is interdict in Cameroun to expel, drive back or take back a refugee at the border of a State where its life or its freedom would be threatened.

The same results are observed when a foreigner, even regular, is the subject of international continuations leading to a request of « extradition »^78(*) accepted by the State. It is the law N°97/010 modifying and supplementing certain provisions of the law N°64/LF/13 of June 26 1964 which fixes from now on the mode of the extradition at Cameroun. It arises that its system extraditionnel falls under the logic of the protective international treaties of the humans right and especially from abroad because these rights must also prevail within the framework of the procedures of extradition. Also, compared to the specific case of the refugee, the State began to respect absolute prohibition to extradite it (even if he is an author of infringements) worms of the applicant countries where he would be exposed to torture. However, because of the international fight against impunity, any person author of crimes of common right^79(*) or international crimes^80(*) is likely to be extradited^81(*). In addition, the infringements known as political or founded on a political mobile^82(*) cannot constitute a reason for extradition but, if beyond the political nature of the infringement, the individual committed a crime of blood, the extradition is possible. The principle of the speciality of the extradition requires that extradited not be able to be continued or punished for an infringement other than that having justified it. It indeed implies a total adequacy between the fact, object of the extradition, and the fact for which it will be judged and will purge its sorrow. Moreover, the right Cameronian extraditionnel applies the aphorism « aut dedere, aut judicare »^83(*). In other words, the State has the option enters  to give the foreign delinquent between the hands of the justice of the State requiring or then, to judge it in accordance with its laws and to apply the sorrow to him which it deserves.

No one can deny only at the time contemporary, all the national legislations devote principles which define the legal statute from abroad. On a purely illustrative basis, we will quote the French Republic which was always regarded as « motherland of the humans right ». It took an ordinance of November 02, 1945 enacted the shortly after the second world war in reaction against the acts of the Vichy government and still into force today. The text had been fixed for goal, like had affirmed it the General Charles OF GAULLE, « to introduce during next years, with method and intelligence, of good elements of immigration in the French community ». This ordinance regulates the legal conditions of entry, stay and exit from abroad in France. ^84(*)

Most important is to implement the rules and principles thus established. This level, it is quite easy to evaluate the bad faith of certain States who ratify with any wind the international texts of protection of the humans right but actually, make pretense apply them. As regards Cameroun in particular, we notice that, generally, the institutionalization in fact of the violations of the rights from abroad remains a phenomenon of topicality.

* ⁷⁸ It is certainly true that the mode of the extradition is not defined by the law of 1997  ; however, relative with the impact which it has in our study, it is important to make case of them.

* ⁷⁹ The crime of common right is a crime whose characteristics are defined by the criminal laws intern of the State.

* ⁸⁰ In accordance with article 5 of the Statute of the International Penal Court signed in Rome on 17 July 1998 and come into effect on July 1, 2002, we distinguish four types of international crimes to knowing  : war crimes, crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. They are the exceptionally serious violations of the rules of the international law. These crimes are imprescriptible.

* ⁸¹ It should not especially be forgotten that the international texts relating to the statute of the refugee prohibit to grant this statute to any applicant of asylum author of crimes of common right.

* ⁸² On a purely illustrative basis, relative with the infringements known as political or founded on a political mobile, prohibited right to Cameroun to extradite an individual continued to have emitted criticisms on the policy of the government of its country of origin.

* ⁸³ Latin formula meaning  : «  either you extradite, or you judge  ».

* ⁸⁴ For more precise details on the legal conditions of entry, stay and exit from abroad in France, to consult VANDENDRIESSCHE (Xavier), the right from abroad, 2nd edition, Paris, Dalloz, 2001.