THE Court of Appeal has ordered expeditious hearing of an appeal lodged by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to challenge the decision of Nzega District Court against 16 people, allegedly involved in armed robbery of gold worth over 4.09bn/-.
Justices Stella Mugasha, Rehema Kerefu and Abraham Mwampashi, sitting at the Court’s Tabora Registry, remitted the case file back to the High Court for hearing of the DPP’s appeal after allowing the appeal he lodged against the findings of the High Court in the matter.
In its decision, the High Court had rejected the appeal lodged by the DPP against the lower court’s decision after sustaining a preliminary objection to the effect that the Notice of Appeal was defective for being titled “the Nzega District Court” instead of “the High Court of Tabora in Tabora.
The justices noted that at the time the DPP’s notice of appeal was lodged at the High Court, the new position set by the Court through the cases of Sendi Wambura and Farijala Shabani was not in existence, thus could not be applicable in such armed robbery trial.
“In this matter, the DPP’s appeal was lodged way back in 2015, it is not bound by the mode of titling the notice as propounded in Sendi’s case and as such, we are constrained to find and deem that the notice of intention to appeal by the (DPP) was competently so filed and equally was the appeal,” they ruled.
The justice pointed out further that it would be unfair and absurd to subject the notice of intention to appeal lodged in 2015 to the requirement which was not in place at the time of lodging the respective notice.
According to the cases of Sendi Wambura and Farijala Shabani Hussein, which were decided in 2018, it is now settled law that any notice of intention to appeal to the High Court must be titled, ‘in the High Court of Tanzania’ and then filed at the trial subordinate courts.
It was their position that a notice of intention to appeal to the High Court against trial subordinate court decision filed prior to requirements introduced in the two cases should not be adjudged incompetent for non-compliance of requirements which were not in place at the time of filing such notices.
Some of the people allegedly involved in the robbery matter were Mawazo Saliboko (1), Jumanne Nshimba(2), Masali Chilu (3), Edward Bunela (4), Shabani Amour (5), John Ndaki (6), Pius Mabula (7), Kulwa Mabula (8), Aloyce Zindolo (9), David Ndaki (10), Teddy Kimario (11), Frank Kabuche (12), Agnes Nshimba (13), Makono Kaniki (14), Marko Mwanagandila (15), Geofrey Kapalata (16), the respondent.
