| Published By: | Mary C. Gwera |
|---|
- He says Tanzania judiciary led reforms are bearing fruits
- Advices other jurisdiction to borrow leaves without closing executive cooperation window
From FAUSTINE KAPAMA-Judiciary of Tanzania, Kampala
The Chief Justice of Tanzania, His Lordship Prof. Ibrahim Hamis Juma today dated October 1, 2024 told the Southern and Eastern Africa Chief Justices’ Forum (SEACJF) here that most of challenges identified ten years ago in the justice sector will be addressed by 2025, following major reforms being carried out by the Judiciary of Tanzania through implementation of Five-Year Strategic Plan.
His Lordship was contributing to the Forum’s Theme, “Enhanced Access to Justice: Underscoring Reforms in African Judiciaries” after presentations made by participants to the meeting when he advised the Chief Justices to think of judiciary led reforms, but always leaving some windows to cooperate with the executive, if they want to succeed, like what the Judiciary of Tanzania is doing.
“If you want to reform justice, you cannot do it directly through the Ministry of Justice or the Attorney General, reforms must begin from the Judiciary and then it goes out. In Tanzania, we had so many reforms initiatives but we could not succeed,” he said.
The Chief Justice gave an experience on how it was in the past as the state of the Judiciary in Tanzania was at bad state and Members of Parliament were asking questions whenever there was bad public building and one would always say it must be a building of some level of courts.
He told the well-attended Forum that when Tanzania established its 2025 Development Vision, the Judiciary thought that they could only access the funds after prepare a strategic plan which could appear as part of implementation of the vison in question.
“Before we prepared that plan, we had a baseline study where court users were asked what problem was with the judiciary and in the justice system as a whole. We engaged a non-government organization from outside to assess us how do we perform. They came with baseline study of 2015 and identified a lot of problems facing the judiciary and the justice sector,” His Lordship said.
He added, “We also looked back at various reform recommendations that are excellent for the judiciary, which were not implemented because of lack of funds. With the five-year- strategic plan, we went to the Government to negotiate and our argument was that if Tanzania real wanted to be part of the medium income country cannot avoid to fund the judiciary.”
The Chief Justice explained that the negotiations bore fruits and the Government went to look for a Word Bank loan, specifically to fund the Judiciary. He informed the Forum that there was first round of World Bank Fund and it was completed two years ago and since the Judiciary of Tanzania did well, they were given another round of five years.
“By 2025 according to our plan, we will make sure some of all those challenges identified ten years ago will be gone. So, if we want to succeed, we should move away from the executive led reforms, we should think judiciary led reforms, but always leaving some windows to cooperate with the executive,” he told the Chief Justices.
He also advised them to have reform champions within their judiciaries like in Tanzania where there is Judiciary Delivery Unit (JDU), which spearheads reforms, follows up activities, prepares concept papers, looks for funds and also takes care of constructions going on.
His Lordship concluded his contributions to the presentations on the Forum’s Theme by informing the Chief Justices also that the Judiciary of Tanzania has very strong Information Communication Technology (ICT) Department and they decided so because the future of reforms is with technology.
“We have given the ICT Department much latitude so as to come up with solutions. We identify the problem and then we ask the ICT department to come up with solutions. We don’t want to look for solutions from outside because they are always not sustainable, we always want to make home backed solutions,” he said.
Apart from His Lordship Prof. Juma, other judicial officers from Tanzania attending the Forum are Court of Appeal Justice Leila Edith Mgonya, the Chief Justice of Zanzibar, His Lordship Khamis Ramadhan Abdalla, High Court of Tanzania Judge Kamazima Kafanabo Idd and Judge Ibrahim Mzee Ibrahim from the High Court of Zanzibar.
The delegation also comprises Zanzibar Chief Court Administrator Kai Bashir Mbarouk, Personal Assistant to the Chief Justice of Tanzania Venance Mlingi, Director of Planning from Judiciary of Zanzibar Salum Mohamed Salum and Chief of Protocol of Judiciary of Tanzania Juma Kapombe Mshana.
