LHRC experts suggest three ways to help get Tanzania’s new Katiba back on track

Dar es Salaam. A team of experts formed by the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) has proposed three ways that could be used in order to provide the country with new constitution.

Let wananchi decide

The team said writing process of the new constitution can be revived by taking the proposed constitution, endorsed by the constitution assembly, to wananchi for voting in a referendum.

A new draft?

Another suggested way according to the experts, was forming a team of experts who will be tasked with a responsibility to prepare another constitution draft to be debated in the new constitution assembly before voting in a referendum.

Need for a national consensus

According to the team, it is important to have a national consensus so that there would be a common objective among stakeholders involved in writing the new Katiba .

Addressing a press conference on Friday, June 22, 2018, Dr James Jesse of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) who led the team said failure to reach a national consensus is what caused the process to stall.

“Stakeholders differed in objectives, interests and expectations. This caused the opposition to boycott the process, leaving it under the domination of stakeholders from one side,” he said.

He said the process was also stalled because of the 2015 General Election as the government and political parties focused on the elections process.

"Therefore, the government should put an emphasis on the national consensus for the process to be revived and to provide the country with the new Katiba,” he said.

According to him, the fifth phase government’s emphasis that the document wasn’t its priority was another reason for the stalled process.

Where to start?

Speaking during the event, LHRC executive director, Dr Hellen Kijo-Bisimba said the new constitution was among three LHRC agendas.

She said there are important issues that have been removed from the draft constitution including division of power, legislator’s term limits and national treasures.

"The process should continue regardless of our starting point. All important issues removed from the draft constitution should be included,” she said.