Timothee Essomba said on 11 October that Vision 4 should have asked the Conseil national de la communication to reconsider its own decision before seeking help from Communication Minister Rene Sadi. Speaking on the programme Le Grand Oral on A1, Essomba said the CNC's rulings are administrative acts that can be challenged through a recours gracieux, the internal procedure by which a party that considers itself wronged asks the authority that took the decision to review its position.
"It would simply have been necessary for Vision 4 to refer the matter to the CNC," he said. He said such a step would have given the regulator the additional elements to re-examine the file, with the option of revising the decision, reforming it, or withdrawing it.
Essomba said Vision 4 instead sought a meeting with the minister of Communication, which he described as a request for intervention. He said Sadi then wrote directly to Canal+, and that the minister had the option of referring the matter to the CNC or to the Prime Minister.
Essomba also addressed the status of the regulator. He said the CNC in Cameroon is placed under the authority of the Prime Minister, and that the word "under" carries its full meaning. He argued the regulator cannot be treated as a service under the authority of the minister of Communication.
The dispute between Vision 4 and the CNC has renewed debate over how decisions of the media regulator can be contested. The CNC is the body that regulates broadcasting in Cameroon. Its decisions are administrative acts, which is the basis of Essomba's argument that the broadcaster had an internal route open to it before going to the ministry.
Essomba's remarks put a public argument on record about the boundary between the ministry and the regulator. The question of who has authority over the CNC, and what recourse a broadcaster has against one of its decisions, is the point on which his criticism turns.
What happens next will be shaped by whether Vision 4 files a recours gracieux with the CNC, and by whether the CNC or Sadi responds to Essomba's criticism. The CNC's next public statement on the Vision 4 file, and any formal response from the ministry, will show whether the internal review route is used or the dispute stays where it is.