Unlike in the past, now there is an increasing number of requests for the nullity of marriages. The Archdiocese of Bamenda does not have its own Marriage Tribunal to handle these cases because we do not possess a sufficient number of qualified personnel for this purpose. The Dioceses of the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province have pulled their forces together to form two Inter-diocesan Marriage Tribunals of First and Second Instance. The Tribunal of First Instance is based in the Archdiocese of Bamenda with its secretariat in the Provincial Major Seminary, Bambui, with the Archbishop of Bamenda as the Moderator. The Tribunal of Second Instance is based in the Diocese of Buea.
This Tribunal of First Instance receives about 10 to 15 cases each year. During the period under consideration it received more than 75 cases. It passed judgement on 5 cases and forwarded them to the Tribunal of Second Instance. It completed 12 cases which, at the time of writing this report, pended judgement, and 14 cases were not yet completed. The rest were still undergoing preliminary investigations.
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