Boniface Mwabukusi is back to seek the Tanganyika Law Society (TLS) presidency after the Dar es Salaam High Court reinstated his claim, which was quashed by the executive-leaning TLS leadership. No sooner had the High Court Judge finished reading her ruling than the Court erupted in applause, jubilation, and satisfaction.
I learnt there that despite the judiciary passing through some dark alley, God still has His people there. For observers and members of the TLS, the next question that rings in their hearts is what will happen next. Clearly, Mwabukusi is now the presumptive TLS president, and he will most likely emerge victorious.
As he had stated, the challenges ahead are not his alone but for all members of the society. He said he is not a Messiah who can deliver the TLS from the oppression imposed by the government, but all should take the fight forward. This discourse interviews the opportunities and threats that Mwabukusi and the now-reinvigorated TLS will face as they attempt to wriggle their way out of the executive clutches that have subdued them for decades.
Mwabukusi will be smart in studying the performance diaries of two anti-establishment figures to run TLS: Tundu Lissu and Fatma Karume. Both carried the hopes and aspirations of their followers but had barely achieved much at the end of their tenures. The real reason for their underachievement was their refusal to think outside the box.
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Both past TLS presidents viewed judicial headaches as internal but not comprehensively holistic. As a result, they tinkered with the inside environment while leaving the real causes undisturbed. At the core of what betides the judiciary is the whacked political system. Unless we have a credible political system, very little can be achieved at the TLS.
TLS will do well to view judicial problems as mere symptoms of a larger problem. Since our political system shuns accountability and transparency, the judiciary is also infected by maladies. At the top of TLS’s agenda is carrying out a major rescue plan for our constitutional and election laws.
Unless the public picks our representatives, we stand no chance as a nation to manage our resources profitably and sustainably. Election reforms should be a matter of priority. Both constitutional provisions and election laws should be targeted for reforms.
The Independent Election Commission (INEC) should loudly declare it is not independent because Tanzanians did not appoint it. The election commission is a playground of the president alone, which is a reason for agitating to free the commission from executive control and manipulation. Our elections will never be free unless we, as a nation, have a say in the formation of the election commission through a different set of representation.
The election recruitment Committee must be free of judges and civil servants. Including judges violates the cardinal doctrine of separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive. The two institutions become conjoined identical twins, eroding the intended constitutional checks and balances. The judiciary will never be independent if it keeps intruding on the executive domain.
Civil servants, their employers, and politicians are the ones whose performance is being examined during elections. Civil servants and their employers cannot be judges of their cause. On the same breath, the president cannot and should not be permitted to appoint an election commission without safeguards.
In those safeguards, the citizens will have a major role to play through a different set of representatives who have never held public office or been employed in the government for the last ten years to fumigate the process from interference. We need to see all registered political parties have one member in the election commission.
We need TLS and other professional bodies to have one member representative in the INEC recruitment committee. All recruitment committee members should not have been employed in the government or hold leadership positions in the political parties. The aim is to insulate the selection committee from “elitism”, which is destroying this nation right now. Fellow members should elect the chairperson of the INEC selection committee, and the president should be restrained from ratification of their decision.
TLS should begin taking up cases of prominent human and civil rights violations. A case like that of that woman who was convicted for 40 years for selling game meat should never again the TLS look the other side. TLS should also regularly give views on bad laws and wrongfully decided cases. TLS voice, unlike any other, has the clout to get decision-makers’ attention. TLS should not take her position lightly.
TLS should modify its rules and regulations to ensure judges cannot disqualify its members. Anyone who has issues with members of the bar should lodge complaints there rather than turning themselves into a lawgiver, which they are not.
As we welcome TLS to pivot away from executive suppression and bondage, we shall also keep following up on whether TLS has finally woken up to her responsibility of acting as our moral compass.
The jury is watching before making its findings public. TLS must adopt an activist role and dump a subdued stance that has caricatured her for too long.
