Rule of Law under Multiparty democracy in Tanzania: Law and Practice

Nchimbi, Hamza (2019) Rule of Law under Multiparty democracy in Tanzania: Law and Practice. Masters thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

After twenty-eight years of one-party rule, the constitution of Tanzania was amended in July 1992 to allow other parties to be formed. The amendment was made after a countrywide study of the mood and wishes of the Tanzanian people was undertaken by a Presidential Commission headed by the country's Chief Justice, Francis Nyalali. Tanzania went through a short period of multi-party politics in the pre-independence period and an even shorter phase of two years after independence. In due course the ideology resulted in stifling the very development which was being pursued and created a group of people who, because they had benefited from running the party and state, became accountable only to themselves; they were unresponsive to the wishes of the people. The Nyalali Commission, as it has come to be known, made over one hundred and fourteen recommendations to the government to guide the transition and to facilitate the functioning of a widely accepted democratic regime. Some recommendations were taken up quickly and the government has purposely tried to stymie discussion on the recommendations. The paper argues that it is understandable that the state would like to avoid chaos by managing the transition tightly. There are various versions of the term, cases; study assessed some of these meanings and then dealt with the relationship between the multiparty democracy and legal institutions and also the legal practices and challenges faced by the practices of the idea of rule of law both internationally and within Tanzania context. The study sought to determine eligibility of some government practices by surveying reports, articles, readings, books, journals and other academic and intellectual studies in relation to human right statuses in Tanzania; hence serving as benchmark towards monitoring the legal practices of the rule of law in the country.

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