The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Tanzanian judge counsels caution on law providing for draconian sentences

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 10, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Tanzanian judge counsels caution on law providing for draconian sentences

Special Correspondent

"Tanzanian Sexual Offences Special Provisions Act has not served its purpose"

CHENNAI: Promulgating a legislation that provides for draconian sentences should be carefully done, a judge of the High Court of Tanzania has said.

Presenting a paper at the second international and sixth biennial conference of the Indian Society of Victimology (ISV) here on "Rape cases in Tanzanian courts: Has the wrath of the law changed anything?" on Friday, Joseph Masanche said any law, even when it was beneficial to society at large, must come from that society it intended to serve.

He said the Tanzanian Sexual Offences Special Provisions Act (SOSPA) had not served its purpose. The law approved by the President in July 1998 was a legislation on offences against morality. It provided up to life imprisonment for the person who raped a girl aged below 10 years. High Court judges had argued whether life imprisonment was mandatory or discretionary. The new law had done away with corroboration.

Quotes research

Quoting his research in criminal cases in the district courts of Dodoma and of Mpwapwa, he said more than 90 per cent of the cases that got filed in the district courts on rape ended in withdrawals. In the District Court of Mpwapwa between January 16 and October 30, 2006, nine cases of rape were filed. Only one ended in conviction and the accused was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. The reasons for withdrawals were that complainants did not turn up in courts to give evidence; complainants reported back that they had settled the matter out of court;

Even where prosecution secured conviction, subordinate courts rarely sentenced culprits to life imprisonment and very few accused persons were sentenced to 30 years imprisonment.

Societal interests

Mr. Joseph Masanche emphasised that societal interests should be researched before such legislations were made laws.

For decades many judiciaries, especially in Commonwealth countries, had advised that sentencing be left to Judges and not to politicians.

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