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Early identification and separation of suspected Covid-19 patients at triage is vital to prevent disease transmission in healthcare settings. Triaging is a complex and context-specific process to implement especially where resources are scarce and health systems are fragile. The need to allocate these resources in a consistent, transparent, and equitable manner during the covid-19 pandemic is underpinned by ethical principles among which are utilitarianism and egalitarianism. Considerations of social identities such as age, gender, social class, and medical criteria such as comorbidities and frailty may lead to explicit and implicit bias and attendant discrimination. Theoretical constructs such as narrow social utility and reciprocity may be invoked to justify the prioritisation of healthcare workers (HCWs) infected with Covid-19 despite the pitfalls in the underlying assumptions. As no single framework exists to comprehensively guide the Covid-19 triage process, the establishment of institutional recommendations and policies within which are embedded safety nets for managing the physical, mental, and emotional fallouts on HCWs is critical.

The new post-pandemic normal reveals challenging features of living through a crisis, including a heightened sense of fear and the awareness of one’s limitations. Some of the challenges have been identified as relating to shifts in employer–employee interfaces or doctor–patient interactions; to increased effort to embrace rapid digitalisation while maintaining interpersonal relations; and to increased pressure to adapt flexibly to financial and structural changes. These are embedded in a greater (and mostly positive) consciousness of human and organisational interconnectedness.

This chapter looks at the parallel experiences of business and health systems as they endeavour to thrive during and beyond a pandemic. The authors recognise the intricate relationship between businesses and health as they feed each other’s overall growth directly or indirectly. Businesses create wealth through a healthy regard for the well-being of their stakeholders while healthcare systems are affected by their own business structures. In both cases, responsible leadership and fairness help to avoid an unhealthy prioritisation of profit.

This chapter reflects on the various routes businesses and health care can take to preserve fairness through ethical leadership. The authors focus on six stakeholders (employee, customer, shareholder, society or community, environment, and creditors) who need to be appropriately cared for and prioritised. The authors consider how promoting human competencies can affect skill acquisition, emotional intelligence, spiritual, and moral growth in both spaces. At the core of our discussion is the concept of self-leadership, which boosts the organisational leadership that in turn determines the kind of future we will have in the new normal.

Over a decade since the Special Criminal Court (SCC) was established in Cameroon, hundreds of individuals have been indicted, tried and convicted. Sentences have been imposed, most of which include a term of imprisonment (principal punishment/penalty) and confiscation as accessory penalty or punishment. Research focus has not been directed at the sentences which, as argued in this paper, are inconsistent, incommensurate with the amounts of money stolen and a significant departure from the Penal Code. This paper aims to explore the aspect of sentencing by the SCC.

To identify, highlight and discuss the issue of sentencing, the paper looks at a blend of primary and secondary materials: primary materials here include but not limited to the judgements of the SCC and other courts in Cameroon and the Penal Code. Secondary materials shall include the works of scholars in the fields of criminal law, criminal justice and penal reform.

A few findings were made: first, the judges are inconsistent in the manner in which they determine the appropriate sentence. Second, in making that determination, the judges would have been oblivious to the prescripts in the Penal Code, which provides the term of imprisonment, and in the event of a mitigating circumstance, the prescribed minimum to be applied. Yet, the default imposition of an aggravating circumstance (being a civil servant) was not explored by the SCC. Finally, whether the sentences imposed are commensurate with the amounts of monies stolen.

This research unravels key insights into the functioning of the SCC. It advances the knowledge thereon and adds to the literature on corruption in Cameroon.

The prosecution and judges at the SCC should deepen their knowledge of Cameroonian criminal law, especially on the nature of liberty given to judges to determine within the prescribed range of the sentence to be imposed but also consider the existence of an aggravating factor – civil servant. They must also consider whether the sentences imposed befit the crime for which they are convicted.

The paper is an original contribution with new insights on the manner in which sentencing should be approached by the SCC.