As the Constituent Assembly began it sitting in Dodoma yesterday, Tanganyika Law Society (TLS) has pointing out weaknesses in the principle of separation of powers as a black spot in the judicial system.
TLS President Francis Stolla told reporters in Dar
es Salaam yesterday that separation of powers as proclaimed in the
statute books mostly remains just there—in the books—while in practice
the standard is utterly violated.
He said there is evidence of encroachment on
judiciary by the state in incidences whereby judgments and orders given
by the courts of law are ignored, shooting down the canons of supremacy
of the law, equality before the law and freedom of the judiciary.
Mr Stolla cited the 2001 case in which the
government in Serengeti District evicted villagers at Nyamuma Village,
to give way to investors.
In 2002, a resident Mr Ibrahim Korosso and 135
others complained to the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance
(CHRGG) with Attorney General and Serengeti District Commissioner as
respondents. The commission awarded the complainants Sh900 million and
ordered that their land be given back.
The case reached court of appeal in 2004, which
withheld the decision by SHRGG but since then, not an inch of land was
given back to the villagers nor a single cent paid in compensation.
Another example is the case of the Arusha-based
lawyer, Mr Median Mwale, who was accused of money laundering in 2011 and
his cars seized by police in the process.
The accused went to the district court which
ordered that the vehicles were illegally taken away and therefore should
be handed back to the owner.
The appeal by the state was rejected by the court of appeal early last year but the order was ignored, he said.
The incidents and others, Mr Stolla said, have set a bad precedent, meaning that the state and not the law, was supreme.
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