On Wednesday, February 25, 2026, at the start of the judicial year, the Supreme Court dropped a bombshell. Before a high-level audience including the Prime Minister and the Minister of State Property, Surveys and Land Affairs (Mindcaf), Henri Eyebe Ayissi, the President of the Judicial Chamber, Fonkwe Joseph Fongang , delivered a scathing indictment of the administrative abuses that undermine land management in the country.

An administrative "ping-pong" over land titles

One of the most striking revelations concerns the chronic instability of administrative acts. The magistrate denounced a phenomenon of rare inconsistency: land titles withdrawn and then reinstated several times within a few days.

"We are witnessing titles being withdrawn a first, second, or even third time, then reinstated just as systematically," Judge Fongang stressed, pointing to the harmful influence of certain collaborators who "would mislead the minister."

The excesses of land conservators

The Court also highlighted the misinterpretation of the regulations by land registrars. Among the practices singled out:

1. The illegal extension of withdrawal: Conservatives arbitrarily extend the withdrawal of a "parent title" to all derivative land titles, without any real legal basis.
2. The distortion of decrees: A tendency to make official texts say what they do not contain, to the detriment of users.

From public utility to "private utility"

The prosecution's case concluded with the sensitive issue of expropriation. While the Constitution and the Civil Code (article 545) strictly protect private property and only authorize expropriation for reasons of public utility with prior compensation, the reality on the ground is quite different.

The judge denounced the emergence of a practice previously unknown in Cameroonian law: expropriation for private use . As for the compensation stipulated by the 1985 law, it is described as a veritable "perennial problem," often remaining inaccessible to the dispossessed populations.