Nicolas Bayona Ba Meya

Nicolas Bayona Ba Meya was born as Nicolas Bayonne on 25 November 1938 in Voka, Bas-Congo, Belgian Congo. He studied humanities at a minor seminary in Kibula at the College Notre-Dame de Mbanza-Mboma from 1952 until 1960.[1] He earned a law degree from Lovanium University four years later.[2] On 23 July 1966 Bayona was appointed to serve as a judge for the Court of Appeal of Lubumbashi. On 14 August 1968 he was removed from his post and appointed to the Supreme Court of Justice.[3] In 1969 he earned his doctorate in law from Lovanium. Afterwards he became a professor and in 1971 became the dean of faculty of law at the Kinshasa campus of the National University of Zaire (formerly Lovanium).[2]

In 1975, when the International Court of Justice was considering a case concerning the transfer of power in Western Sahara, Bayona submitted his opinion to the court on the legal principle of terra nullius, which entails that a state may assume sovereignty over any unclaimed territory. He criticised terra nullius as materialistic and a contributory factor to the partition of Africa among European empires. He instead posited that a spiritual, ancestral connection between a plot of land and the people born of it offered a stronger basis for claims to sovereignty.[4]

Bayona served as the First President of the Supreme Court of Justice from 1975 until 1983.[5] In March 1996 he was made President of the Commission Nationale des Élections, a body designed to ensure the establishment of a free election by 1997 in Zaire as part of a democratic transition under President Mobutu Sese Seko. Opposition groups regarded Bayona as a puppet of Mobutu and doubted his ability to fairly oversee the process. The commission was disbanded in May 1997 after Laurent-Désiré Kabila seized power. He died on 26 August 1998.[2]