TLS’s Fatma Karume censures criminal justice

Dar es Salaam. The Tanganyika Law Society (TLS) president Fatma Karume has criticised the country’s criminal justice system, saying it was prone to abuse at the expense of suspects.

Ms Karume said the legal fraternity was saddened to see how the system is abused to persecute the accused despite their enjoyment of constitutional protection.

Her address on Law Day today, February 6, 2019, was published online after her participation at the national function to mark the day was vetoed.

Ms Karume revealed the Judiciary wrote informing her that she would not be making the traditional TLS speech at the Law Day celebrations owing to time constraints. President John Magufuli was the chief guest at the celebrations.

In the address, Karume criticised the practice where the accused are arrested and remanded for years even though no sufficient evidence has been gathered to sustain the charges against them. 

She said the practice was now becoming common in the country.

“If the evidence is insufficient, how sure are you that someone has got a case to answer? Is arresting and remanding people without the rights to have access to bail tolerable in accordance with our constitution with Bill of Rights? I’m asking myself: is this the kind of justice guaranteed by our constitution?,” queried Karume in the address. “The answer is no, no and no.” 

Fatma said that in a visit she paid to the Segerea prison in December last year, there were a total of 1,723 male inmates among whom only 158 inmates were imprisoned and the rest 1,565 were on remand. Of 313 female inmates, only 66 have been imprisoned while 247 were on remand.

Fatma pointed out that the constitution recognises the Bill of Rights but surprisingly, instead of non-bailable offences be seen as decreasing they were growing on a daily basis. “We have reached a point whereby even tax evasion offences have become predicate offences for money laundering which are non-bailable. So if someone is being accused of evading paying tax she can be remanded without bail for an offence of money laundering,” said Fatma whose tenure as the president of the bar expires this year.

Fatma said that the accused will remain in remand prison until the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) gathers sufficient evidence to indict them.

Along the way, no one bothers to understand that the accused has got a family and relatives to take care of. Once the DPP decides not to proceed with the case, the “accused” is released without any compensation. She considers this to be unfairness.

“Now we cannot blame the DPP because she does not have a constitutional mandate to ensure justice prevails. That’s the judiciary’s mandate. The DPP can be blamed for not observing ethics that guide her office but there should be no one else to whom the blame needs to be put on except the Judiciary because the constitution makes it clear that the final organ in the provision of justice will be the Judiciary,” she noted.

Commenting on the Judiciary’s move to stop her from attending the Law Day celebration and make a speech, Ms Fatma said such a decision has happened for the first time in a decade when the TLS has been denied an opportunity to address the Judiciary and the general public on the disguise of time constraints. “The Judiciary’s letter to me is unprecedented but I comfort myself with the knowledge that nothing should come as a surprise in the present Tanzanian political environment and we should not be disheartened.”