PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan’s commitment to transforming the criminal justice system in the country has brought human rights activists from the dark to limelight to table their rightful recommendations for a better common future.
The Head of State recently formed a 12-people committee and five secretariat members to investigate security forces and criminal justice in the country. The committee started its functions early this month and will have its suggestions and recommendations done by May.
The Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC) recommends changing of names and some core functions of the Police Force and the Prison Services in Tanzania to suit the needs of properly addressing criminal justice systems in the country.
The recommendations are part of calls for the reformation of the criminal justice system in Tanzania and have been done jointly by THRDC Secretariat and human rights advocates who have been litigating on human rights and criminal cases. Over 200 THRDC members and other human rights stakeholders have been working on the areas of the criminal justice system.
“Human rights defenders are joining hand President Samia’s call by suggesting the name of the Police Force as an institution should aim at providing services, hence its name should be the Police Service of Tanzania. Also Prison Service should be purely based on correction activities of inmates so that they can be good citizens after their jail terms are over,” said Advocate Onesmo Ole Ngurumwa, the THRDC National Coordinator.
Another suggestion by THRDC is that the power to arrest criminals or persons alleged to have committed offences should be left to the police officers than by the executive leaders, such as the district commissioner and regional commissioner as in many cases trigger misuse of laws and powers.
The human rights defenders also advise that combating crimes should go in line with liaising between the Police Service and the communities as a best way of combating criminals as they all live within the society.
“There should be well structured systems of educating the people not to commit crimes and the laws should be improved to focus on prevention of crimes rather than waiting to intervene after crimes are committed. Also there should be oversight bodies to monitor the conduct and take actions against another security institution that may be accused of violating human rights,” adds Advocate Ngurumwa.
Other suggestions from human rights defenders, according to him, are that there should be no arresting any accused person before investigation is completed and speed up handling of cases in courts of law. This should be to all offences, including the grave ones.
The appointment of senior officials to run security organs like the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Commissioner General of Prison Services and others should be open, competitive and must be approved by the Parliament.
“Judges and magistrates should not focus on custodial sentences but optional fines where the paramount objective should be that the first offender should be fined and not being sentenced to prison,” he says.
Human rights defenders believe that criminal justice and human rights are in tandem and to get rid of this, they advise the need of having a judge and magistrate to be knowledgeable on human rights if they are to deliver a fair decision. This should go hand in hand with the introduction of modern tools for conducting investigation, monitoring, combating crimes and handling of cases.
“We propose the development of the New Constitution that will outline the modern foundations and principles of the criminal justice system. Many of the recommendations on criminal justice institutions will require constitution review to affect them,” he hints.
Advocate Ngurumwa explains that another proposal is for all criminal justice institutions to have a clear policy on public and media communication and how they can share data and information with the media and the public. He said that this will allow media presence and coverage to all public cases.
He adds that the recommendations are mainly focusing on proposing comprehensive review of criminal justice system in Tanzania because it has been criticised by human rights defenders and the public for being colonial and operating on laws which are arbitrary, unconstitutional and against human rights principles.
THRDC’s observation is that in Tanzania the crime of assault is currently used to prosecute cases of torture hence recommend enactment of provisions criminalising acts of torture and appropriate penalties that consider the grave nature of acts of torture. “Tanzania should have an absolute prohibition of torture, as provided for in international law (jus cogens), whereby no exceptional circumstances whatsoever may be invoked to justify torture. This is in respect of protecting and promoting fundamental human rights in Tanzania,”
Subsequently, constitutional amendments are vital for addressing changes and hence, the Human right defenders call for having a new constitution which they believe will highly address many of the recommended reforms that need constitutional review for them to be implemented efficiently and effectively for a better future.
