Author: FAUSTINE KAPAMA
AfricaPress-Tanzania: PROMINENT Advocate Fatma Karume has appealed to the High Court to challenge the decision of the Advocates Committee to order removal of her name from the roll of advocates of the Tanganyika Law Society (TLS) for allegedly professional misconduct.
Through her Advocate Peter Kibatala, the seasoned lawyer has advanced 11 grounds of appeal to fault the Committee’s decision given against her on September 23, 2020.
Already three judges of the High Court of Tanzania have been assigned to determine the appeal. According to the summons issued by the Court, the appeal will be heard by Judges Issa Maige, Deo Nangela and Edwin Kakolaki on November 3, 2020.
Ms Karume, the appellant, is requesting the court to allow the appeal and quash the decision of the Committee. The Committee and the Attorney General (AG) are the respondents in the appeal in question.
In the grounds of appeal, the appellant states that the Committee had no jurisdiction to entertain the matter before it because it was not moved by a proper party.
According to her, the aggrieved party, Professor Adelardus Kilangi, was not before the Committee on his personal capacity, while the AG in his official capacity could not move the Committee on behalf Prof. Kilangi since they were and are one and the same.
She states that the Committee acted without judicial authority and propriety to entertain the matter when it was made cognizant of the subsisting order of the superior body, the High Court, ordering the Registrar to transmit the alleged professional misconduct of the appellant to the Committee.
In ignoring the order of the Hugh Court in spite of it being appraised of the same by the counsel for the appellant to the Committee potentially exposed her in double jeopardy.
Furthermore, the appellant stated that the Committee acted vexatious and prejudicially in receiving new evidence which was not and could not be before the High Court, since the alleged misconduct was committed after the hearing in the case of Ado Shaibu.
If any person was aggrieved he/she should have filed a separate compliant after the conclusion of the case.
The Committee erred in receiving electronic evidence contrary to the rules relating to discovery and production of electronic evidence despite the objections of the appellant’s counsel.
The appellant stated that the composition of the Committee was partial in adjudication of the matter since some of the evidence pleaded before it was allegedly directed against the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), who was sitting as a member.
Furthermore, the appellant stated that the appearance of the Solicitor General as representative of the AG was illegal and improper in that he had no independent capacity to enter appearance.
In its verdict delivered at a meeting held at the High Court in Dar es Salaam and confirmed by both parties, the Committee found Ms Karume guilty of going against the professional ethics on a number of issues after considering the evidence tendered in favour of the complaint.
Following such decision, the Registrar of the High Court was required to send to the Court of Appeal or High Court, as the case may be, for each East African country a certified copy of the order as to the removal of the name of the advocate from the roll.
The permanent removal from the roll of advocates’ decision also comes hardly year when Principal Judge of the High Court of Tanzania, Dr Eliezer Feleshi, temporarily suspended Ms Karume from practicing for allegedly issuing unprofessional and disrespectful submissions in court.
Dr Feleshi imposed such ban when he was delivering a ruling in a constitutional petition lodged by ACT-Wazalendo Ideology, Publicity and Public Communications Secretary Ado Shaibu against President, Dr John Magufuli and Attorney General Prof. Adelardus Kilangi.
“I hereby suspend ,Ms Fatma Karume, Roll No. 848 from practicing under section 22 (2) (b) of the Advocates Act pending the reference of the professional misconduct matter to the Advocate’s Disciplinary Committee,” he declared.
Ms Karume was alleged to have acted unprofessionally and disrespectfully by advancing personal vindications to the Solicitor General and the Attorney General of the United Republic of Tanzania when the parties were presenting submissions on preliminary points of objections against the petition.
The Principal Judge pointed out that according to section 66 of the Advocates Act, any person duly admitted as an advocate is an officer of the High Court and is subjected to its jurisdiction.
For that matter, he said, advocate’s duty to the court like in other jurisdictions has remained paramount.
Having so concluded, Dr Feleshi referred the matter to the Committee for further determination, considering that Ms Karume did not have an opportunity to reply to the respondents’ complaint on record, thus the court could not adjudge the complaint without according her opportunity to be heard.
According to him, during hearing, she could justly draw a line from which the independence of the judiciary has optimal protection against the rights advocates and other court users are entitled to in criticising the Judiciary and judicial officers.
