ARUSHA: THE Judiciary of Tanzania, through Judiciary Delivery Unit (JDU) is intending to build special studio that will be used for recording statements and taking photographs of suspects accused of committing crimes, the Chief Justice of Tanzania, Professor Ibrahim Juma has said.
Speaking while closing the Court of Appeal Half Annual Meeting on Friday at the Mount Meru Hotel in Arusha, Prof Juma pointed out that the move will reduce complaints of framing of cases or people recounting their statements by saying they were forced to record by the Police.
“Now, in order to help the Police in this, the JDU is thinking of building special studios that will be places for recording statements of the accused persons together with their photographs instead of relying on statements written by the hand of the Police,” he said.
The Chief Justice noted that expectations for the construction of the Studios comes after the Judiciary Rules Committee, led by Court of Appeal Justice Rehema Mkuye, to enact a rule called, ‘Audio and Video Recording of Police Interview of Suspects’.
He explicated that the Rule stipulates that instead of the Police interviewing and writing down the details of suspects at Police Stations, there should be Special Studios that will be used to record what is happening and take pictures.
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“This move will reduce the complaints of the citizens of being framed up case or saying that I was forced to record the statement. These are some areas of reforms that show how much the Rules Committee has helped in accessing justice,” Prof Juma said.
The Chief Justice explained that after preparing the First Phase of the Strategic Plan, the Judiciary of Tanzania sat and negotiated with the Government to find funds that would be used to implement it and facilitate the implementation of various reforms.
“One of the areas that needed reforms is the Laws and Regulations, which seemed to have been overtaken by the world changes and cannot accommodate reforms to create an environment for good governance, the rule of law, a better business environment and an investment environment,” he said.
For example, he said, in order to compare itself with judiciaries that were valued by businessmen and investors, like in Singapore, the Tanzanian Judiciary was supposed to reduce many steps that cases go through, in order to make it easier to do business.
The Chief Justice who was the Chairman of the meeting, noted that the reforms in the law were given priority and project funds were allocated for the purposes of enabling the Committee to carry out its mandates.
“During the Reform Programmes Period, the total number of Rules prepared and recommended to the Chief Justice by the Rules Committee is between 60 and 70, this is from 2013,” he said, also noting that the Rules Committee is the eye of the judiciary as a user and implementer of the law.