Decolonising retributive sentencing practices in Cameroon by upholding the value of Ubuntu: A focus on the death penalty

Agenda 2063 of the African Union (AU) aspires towards an Africa free from the shackles of colonialism. Many African countries remain bound to colonial retributive practices imposed upon them by the former colonisers. Cameroon was a German colony between 1884 and 1919. Retributive sentencing practices were enforced by the German Empire while traditional restorative forms of justice were disregarded. These practices have shaped the current sentencing framework which is largely retributive. This chapter argues that a retributive system is colonial and not African. Most African countries, including Cameroon, subscribed to community-based justice practices prior to colonialism. The German Empire introduced a system of oppression and individualism, the antithesis of pre-colonial Cameroon. This chapter calls for a reform of sentencing practices in Cameroon. This is important on a continent where Africans have been subjected to retributive practices for centuries. The chapter also focuses specifically on the most severe form of sentencing, namely, the death penalty. I argue that the African value of Ubuntu, which calls for a common humanity among people, could be used to aid in sentencing reform. The landmark South African case of Makwanyane is used to illustrate the value of Ubuntu and sentencing reform. This chapter adopts a qualitative desktop analysis to examine the retributive methods adopted by the German Empire in relation to the current Cameroonian sentencing regime. The theory of decolonisation provides the justification for the call for law reform. This is one of the first legal studies to address the decolonisation of Cameroonian sentencing based on German colonisation. It adds to the current debate on the decolonisation of retributive sentencing practices in Africa. It also makes an important contribution towards the current literature addressing the impact of German colonialism on post-colonial African law reform.