Marcel Lihau

Marcel Antoine Lihau or Ebua Libana la Molengo Lihau (29 September 1931 – 9April 1999) was a Congolese jurist, law professor and politician who served as the inaugural First President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Congo from 1968 until 1975, and was involved in the creation of two constitutions for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Lihau attended the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium with the help of sympathetic Jesuit educators, becoming one of the first Congolese to study law.

While there he encouraged Congolese politicians to form an alliance that allowed them to secure the independence of the Congo from Belgium.

He served briefly as a justice official and negotiator for the Congolese central government before being appointed to lead a commission to draft a permanent national constitution.

Marcel Lihau was born on 29 September 1931 in Bumba, Équateur Province, Belgian Congo, the eldest of eight children.

After his secondary education at the Bolongo seminary, he attended the Jesuit University Centre in Kisantu, graduating from the school's administrative sciences division.

One of Lihau's teachers, sociologist Willy De Craemer, resolved to help him enroll in the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, a school mostly unavailable to Congolese.

To do this, De Craemer tutored him in Latin, Greek, and Flemish so he could take the Jury Central entrance exam.

Lihau passed the test with a high score and was admitted to the university.

Since it was his goal to study law (not permitted to Congolese students at the time), De Craemer and several sympathetic Jesuit educators arranged for Lihau to take the necessary classes under the cover of studying Roman philology.

He also studied economics and philosophy.

For the duration of his studies he stayed with the family of a former director of Radio Léopoldville, Karel Theunissen.

Lihau served as president of the small Congolese-Ruanda-Urundi students' union in Belgium, Association Générale des Étudiants Congolais en Belgique (AGEC).

In 1958, a conference of Belgian missionaries was held to discuss expanding tertiary education in the Congo.

As an invited speaker, Lihau encouraged Belgian clergy to join the side of Congolese activists and abandon what he referred to as an attitude of "clerical paternalism".

On the eve of the Belgo-Congolese Round Table Conference in Brussels in January 1960, Lihau advised the Congolese political delegations to form a "Front Commun".

They did, and the decision significantly strengthened their bargaining position with the Belgian government.

Lihau attended the political portion of the conference as an observer on behalf of the AGEC.

While there, he presented two papers compiled by the AGEC.

The first, entitled "The Congo Before Independence", led the president of the conference to create one commission to discuss the future of the Congo's political institutions and another to address the upcoming elections.

The second paper, entitled "The Internal Political Organisation of the Congo", compared the merits of Federalism and Unitarianism and proposed that the Congolese adopt one system or the other to ensure the future integrity of their country.

Before the conference dissolved, the Front Commun accepted the offer of the independence of the "Republic of the Congo" on 30 June 1960.

In April and May, Lihau participated in the conference that addressed the Congo's planned economic transition.

Shortly after independence, a widespread mutiny in the army and the secession of several provinces resulted in a domestic crisis.

In August Lihau met with a UN official in New York who encouraged him to disseminate support of a reconciliation between the central government and the authorities of the rebellious "State of Katanga".

President Joseph Kasa-Vubu dismissed Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in September 1960 but the latter refused to leave his post, creating a political impasse.

In 1962, after spending time in the Congo, Lihau returned to Louvain to complete his studies.

That year restrictions on Congolese education were loosened and Lihau became a Doctor of Philosophy law student.

By the following January, he had become one of the first Congolese to receive a law degree, earning it with distinction.

He was made dean of law faculty at Lovanium University in 1963.

The following year he helped deliver the Luluabourg Constitution to the Congolese, which was adopted by referendum.

In 1965, Joseph-Desiré Mobutu seized total control of the country and directed Lihau to produce a new constitution.

Three years later Lihau was appointed First President of the new Supreme Court of Justice of the Congo.

He retained the position, advocating for judicial independence, until 1975, when he refused to force a harsh sentence upon student protesters.

Lihau was summarily removed from his post by Mobutu and placed under house arrest.

Becoming increasingly opposed to the government, he helped found the reform-oriented Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social.

Mobutu responded by suspending his rights and banishing him to a rural village.

His health in decline, Lihau sought refuge from political persecution in the United States in 1985, accepting a job as a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University.

He continued to advocate for democracy in the Congo and returned to the country in 1990, to discuss political reform.

He went back to the United States to seek medical treatment and died there in 1999.