Decree Holder
JF-Expert Member
- Jul 19, 2015
- 2,556
- 3,741
Anaandika wakili Tundu Lissu.
Colleagues of the Bar and fellow citizens. Very cordial greetings from my side.
I'm compelled to write to refute, and to denounce, reports widely published in today's press claiming that the Minister for Constitutional Affairs and Justice, Hon. Dr. Harrison George Mwakyembe, has deleted my name from the list candidates for the position of President of TLS in the forthcoming elections next week.
If true, these developments reveal not only a government in panic but also one hellbent in subverting and extinguishing whatever remains of the independence and autonomy of TLS as a National Bar Association.
Should Mwakyembe and the government succeed in this latest assault on the Rule of Law and the independence of the legal profession, TLS will no longer have the right to call itself a National Bar Association. It'll be a little worse than a mere government arm in private legal practice.
We lawyers will have no legitimate right to call ourselves - in local, national, regional or international fora and conferences we all love attending - that we're representatives of the Tanzanian Bar. There will be no Bar to speak of. We'll all be mere government puppets pretending to be private legal practitioners with an autonomous Bar Association. Not even during the darkest days of the one party regime did the legal profession face the grim
challenges it faces today.
I therefore call on you all to reject and resist this assault on your professional independence. It's not a matter of mere professional pride, it's a fundamental question of who you're and your place in society. As far as I'm concerned, I'm still a candidate for the office of the President of TLS and everything remains unchanged.
Dr. Mwakyembe's decision is, if true, utterly illegal and of no effect or consequence whatever. He doesn't have any legal mandate in matters pertaining to TLS elections, if at all. Neither does the government he represents. I intend to hold a press conference at the very earliest possible opportunity to clarify on this and other matters relating to the TLS elections.
I'll keep you regularly updated with information. Once again good morning.
Colleagues of the Bar and fellow citizens. Very cordial greetings from my side.
I'm compelled to write to refute, and to denounce, reports widely published in today's press claiming that the Minister for Constitutional Affairs and Justice, Hon. Dr. Harrison George Mwakyembe, has deleted my name from the list candidates for the position of President of TLS in the forthcoming elections next week.
If true, these developments reveal not only a government in panic but also one hellbent in subverting and extinguishing whatever remains of the independence and autonomy of TLS as a National Bar Association.
Should Mwakyembe and the government succeed in this latest assault on the Rule of Law and the independence of the legal profession, TLS will no longer have the right to call itself a National Bar Association. It'll be a little worse than a mere government arm in private legal practice.
We lawyers will have no legitimate right to call ourselves - in local, national, regional or international fora and conferences we all love attending - that we're representatives of the Tanzanian Bar. There will be no Bar to speak of. We'll all be mere government puppets pretending to be private legal practitioners with an autonomous Bar Association. Not even during the darkest days of the one party regime did the legal profession face the grim
challenges it faces today.
I therefore call on you all to reject and resist this assault on your professional independence. It's not a matter of mere professional pride, it's a fundamental question of who you're and your place in society. As far as I'm concerned, I'm still a candidate for the office of the President of TLS and everything remains unchanged.
Dr. Mwakyembe's decision is, if true, utterly illegal and of no effect or consequence whatever. He doesn't have any legal mandate in matters pertaining to TLS elections, if at all. Neither does the government he represents. I intend to hold a press conference at the very earliest possible opportunity to clarify on this and other matters relating to the TLS elections.
I'll keep you regularly updated with information. Once again good morning.
