A Study of Tanzania's Non-Compliance with Its
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A STUDY OF TANZANIA’S NON-COMPLIANCE WITH ITS OBLIGATION TO DOMESTICATE INTERNATIONAL JUVENILE JUSTICE STANDARDS IN COMPARISON WITH SOUTH AFRICA JULIUS CLEMENT MASHAMBA A THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D.) OF THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF TANZANIA 2013 ii CERTIFICATION We, the undersigned, hereby certify that we have supervised and thoroughly read the thesis and we have found it to be in the form acceptable for submission as it is an original work of the author. Main Supervisor’s Signature: _____________________________ PROF. MOHAMMED S. HUSSAIN DATED at Dar es Salaam this……. day of …………….., 2013 Co-Supervisor’s Signature: _____________________________ DR. PAUL KIHWELO DATED at Dar es Salaam this……. day of …………….., 2013 iii STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT This Thesis is a copyright material protected under the Berne Convention, the Copyrights and Neighbouring Act (1999), and other international and national enactments; thus, an intellectual property. No part of this thesis may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the author or the Open University of Tanzania in that behalf. iv DECLARATION I, JULIUS CLEMENT MASHAMBA, do hereby declare that, this thesis is my work, and that it has not been presented to any university for a similar or any other degree award. Signature: ___________________________ JULIUS CLEMENT MASHAMBA DATED at Dar es Salaam this……. day of …................... 2013 v DEDICATION To all African children who suffer unnoticed behind bars. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENT This research work is a result of contributions and efforts harnessed from many people and institutions. Although it is not possible to mention all those who have, in one way or another, contributed to the completion of this work, I would like to convey my sincere gratitude to them all. Special appreciation should be made to my supervisors, Prof. Mohammad S. Hussain and Dr. Paul Kihwelo, for their relentless and critical guidance to me. They provided both moral support and intellectual guidance despite their busy schedules. Their valuable scholarly advice and readiness to share the vast knowledge they have in this area together with their wide-ranging critiques of the various drafts, meticulous attention to detail, painstaking editing and constant support were all very useful to the completion of this thesis. I am grateful to Prof Jørgen Jepsen and Charlotte F. Pedersen (then working with the DIHR) for inspiring me to venture into (and later undertaking a study) in this area. The work on this research coincided with my appointment to serve as a member of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) in 2010. As such, I received vast knowledge and experiences from my colleagues in the Committee: Prof. Julia Sloth-Nielsen (South Africa), Dr. Benyam Dawit Mezmur (Ethiopia), Mrs. Amal Muhammad al-Hangari (Libya), Mr. Andrianirainy (“Andriy”) Rasamoely (Madagascar), Mme Agnes Kabore (Burkina vii Faso), Justice Alfas Chitakunye (Zimbabwe), Mme Felicité Muhimpundu (Rwanda), Mr. Cyprien Adebayo Yanclo (Benin), Mme Fatima Delladj-Sebaa (Algeria), Maryam Uwais (Nigeria) and our Secretary, Mme Mariama Cisse (Niger). I am very grateful to them. I am also thankful to my colleagues at the National Organisation for Legal Assistance (nola) for their support during the time when I was conducting this study. Without moral and material support from my colleagues at nola this study would not have come to fruition. I also thank the Board of Directors and the Management Team of nola for their financial and material support to me during my study on this work. I am particularly indebted to my colleagues – Kaleb Lameck Gamaya, James Marenga, Dotto Justo Ng’whelo, Charles Mutakyahwa Nkonya, Isabella Nchimbi, Rose Marealle, Gwantwa Mtemi, Shoose Matoi, Charles Mkude, and Dickens Mwakibolwa – for their support and for tolerating me during my long working hours, sometimes into the night. I am grateful to Lorenzo Wakefield, who was then the Coordinator of the Children’s Rights Project of the Community Law Centre (CLC) at the University of the Western Cape, and Usang Maria Assim (then Doctoral Researcher at the Children’s Rights Project, University of the Western Cape), for providing me with relevant literature and updates on juvenile justice in South Africa. Mr. Freddy Lwoga of the Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre (TFNC) proof-read and Mr. Ezekiel Sanga formatted this thesis. I wish to thank them for such a tremendous work. I would also wish to extend viii my deepest gratitude to Dr. B.T. Mapunda of the University of Dar es Salaam School of Law for independently reviewing and providing critical comments to this thesis. His Lordship Dr. (Judge) Gerald Ndika (Judge of the High Court of Tanzania and the Principal of the Law School of Tanzania) acted as my external examiner. I kindly thank him for his critical comments, which improved this work. I further wish to extend my sincere gratitude to Dr. Susan Kolimba, Dean of the Faculty of Law; Dr. Magreth Bushesha, the Coordinator of Post-Graduate Studies; Dr. Donald Fungameza and Harriet Mtae in the Directorate of Research and Post- Graduate Studies, both of the Open University of Tanzania, for their moral and material support to me in the course of this study. Lastly, I would like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to my beloved wife, Beatrice Akwisombe, my sons, Owen-Collins and Louis Mashamba; and my beloved daughter, Charlotte Mashamba, for their love, understanding and tolerance during my many absences from home when I was working on this thesis. ix ABSTRACT This study aims at making a comparative examination of the administration of juvenile justice systems in South Africa and Tanzania with a view to establishing the extent to which the Tanzanian Government has effectively honoured its obligations to domesticated international juvenile justice standards for the protection of the rights of children in conflict with the law. Divided into eight chapters, the methodology adopted by this study is the “legal centralism approach”, which centres on the laws that are made and enforced by the state. In this context, the study employed both field and library research; whereby relevant international human rights instruments and municipal laws were analysed in the context of data obtained from the field. In the main, the study has noted that, whereas South Africa has effectively domesticated international juvenile justice standards in the Child Justice Act (the CJA), Tanzania has not effectively domesticated those standards because provisions relating to children in conflict with the law as set out in Part IX of the Tanzanian Law of the Child Act (the LCA) are not sufficient to adequately protect the rights of offending children. As such, the thesis has recommended for the amelioration of this situation, including constitutionalisation of child rights and enacting a specific law to protect the rights of children in conflict with the law. The proposed constitutional and legislative reforms can help to spell out the juvenile justice system, prerequisite structures, procedures, specialized staff and premises for processing child offenders. x TABLEOF CONTENTS CERTIFICATION......................................................................................................ii STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT............................................................................iii DECLARATION.......................................................................................................iv DEDICATION.............................................................................................................v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.........................................................................................vi ABSTRACT................................................................................................................ix LIST OF ABREVIATIONS....................................................................................xxi LIST OF CASES..................................................................................................xxviii LIST OF LEGISTALTION................................................................................xxxiv CHAPTER ONE 1.0 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEWPF THE STUDY............................1 1.1 Background to the Study..................................................................................1 1.2 Statement of the Problem................................................................................10 1.3 Justification of the Study................................................................................15 1.4 Objectives of the Study..................................................................................15 1.5 Hypotheses.....................................................................................................16 1.7 Literature Review...........................................................................................17 1.8 Research Methodology...................................................................................30 CHAPTER TWO 2.0 THE NEXUS BETWEEN CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND JUVENILEJUSTICE...................................................................................38 xi 2.1 Introduction.....................................................................................................38 2.2 The Concept of (Criminal) Law......................................................................40