AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs has outlined priority areas in the coming financial year, making it clear that construction of court buildings across the country will continue, including monitoring the forthcoming general election and pursuing the best legal systems.
Tabling the ministry’s budget estimates and expenditure in the National Assembly here yesterday, Ambassador Augustine Mahiga, the minister, said the focus areas include embarking on the construction of the solicitor general’s head office in Dodoma and speeding up the decision of outstanding administrative backlogs.
“We plan to finalise and commission the national action plan on human rights, establish a framework for managing wealth and natural resources, coordinating the review of various treaties and identifying areas with negative concessions for reparation,” minister Mahiga said.
“The office of the attorney general is planning to build regional offices upcountry. It will also continue with the legal review, writing and interpretation as well as strengthening its information communication systems,” he noted.
The parliament endorsed the ministry’s 396.507bn/- for the financial year 2020/21 in which it is expected to collect some 14.6bn/- from its internal sources.
Dr Mahiga explained that the commission for legal reforms was set to finalise research on legal systems for government agricultural markets, corporative societies, and economic sabotage.
Dr Mahiga told the National Assembly that the government was satisfied with the level of human rights and governance in the country, adding that so far, the judicial had delivered decisions on over a million cases or 78 per cent of 1.3million filed cases across country’s courts of law.
The courts also attended to some 15,447 claims out of 15,346, an equivalent of 99.3 per cent of registered claims between 2015 and March 2020.
The minister announced that his office had adopted a comprehensive case management system, a complaints management system, document management system, human resources and asset management systems that have helped improve the judiciary’s efficiency.According to the minister, penalties imposed on wrongdoers during President John Magufuli’s administration so far had generated over 3.55bn/-.
Properties worth over 16.38bn/- cash, 4.27bn/- minerals, 65 vehicles, 6,894 timbers, a tractor, 94 motorcycles, 21 houses, seven plots, two farms, four boats, two boat engines, two canoes and one tricycle were confiscated under court orders.
Other properties include 1200—meter long electric cable, 35 mattresses, five laptops, 149 mobile phones, one GPS machine, three peacocks, 4283 cows, 17 sheep and 63 goats. 60m/- worth elephant trophy, 260 litres of chemicals and 200 litres of hydraulics.
“During the same period, the office of solicitor general administered 109 national and international mediation pleas in which 14 have been concluded while 95 others are at different levels,” he said, noting that the government saved some 13.219bn/-.
A total of 533 out of 6,495 civil cases were also concluded and the government saved 266.7bn/-.
Najma Giga, the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee for Constitutional and Legal Affairs presenting the committee’s opinion, urged the ministry to invest in information and telecommunication technologies that would advance hearing and processing of criminal and civil cases online.
The committee believed that ICT was vital especially now that the country was battling the novel virus –COVID-19.
