This Court Ruling Sets an Example for Us All to Follow
By Anna Bwana
A few days ago, the Court of Appeal issued a significant judgement, one that pushes back on recent legal changes that had restricted Tanzanian citizens’ constitutional rights. As Twaweza’s new Executive Director, I celebrate this judgement, and I look forward to working with civil society, government, and others, on further strengthening our institutions and norms that uphold good governance and the rule of law.
Let’s start by looking at the court’s decision. Sometimes, these kinds of judgements are so complicated that nobody other than the most highly-trained lawyers has any chance of understanding them. Fortunately for the rest of us, this is not one of those times. So what did the court say?
Well, it concluded that several changes made in 2020 to the Basic Rights and Duties Enforcement Act (BRADEA) were unconstitutional. The Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania (in Article 26) states clearly that citizens have the right to take legal action to protect the Constitution – often known as public interest litigation. In other words, if the government does something that is against the Constitution, then any citizen has the right to challenge the government in court.
The amended BRADEA effectively took away that right, saying you could only take legal action in situations where you were personally affected. But as the judges noted, this was not what was intended when the Constitution was written, as it has a separate provision (in Article 30) for situations where citizens’ own rights have been violated.
The judgement went a little further than this, striking down provisions in BRADEA that put obstacles in the way of legal challenges and barred direct lawsuits against senior officials like the President and Chief Justice, as well as various other things of significance. The court ended its judgement by directing parliament to amend BRADEA accordingly and stated that if they do not do so within 12 months, those parts of the law will no longer have legal effect.
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