By FAUSTINE KAPAMA-Judiciary, Arusha
The Registered Trustees of Tanzania Law Reports Board, whose Settlor is the Chief Justice, has completed editorial work for publication of Tanzania Law Reports (TLR) 2021 and selection of court decisions for publication of TLR 2024.
Presenting a topic at the Court of Appeal Half Annual Meeting here today dated October 11, 2024, the Director of Library Services Unit of Judiciary of Tanzania, Hon. Kifungu Mrisho Kariho told the Justices that by December 2024 publication of TLRs 2021 to 2024 will be completed.
“By December 2024, the publication of TLRs 2021 to 2024 will be completed. The intention of the TLR Board is to publish half a year TLRs by 2025 and then quarterly by 2026,” Hon. Kariho, who is also Deputy Registrar of the High Court of Tanzania, said.
He explained that the Law Reports would also be incorporated in TanzLII, a legal research website, which facilitates free and open access to the laws of Tanzania, a variety of Tanzanian legal materials, including case law from the courts of record, legislation and the Tanzania gazette.
Explaining how TanzLII stated, Hon. Kariho said that in 2016, when the Judiciary of Tanzania began to implement its first five-year strategic plan, and the first phase of the Citizen- Centric Judicial Modernization and Justice Service Delivery Project, one of the challenges calling for urgent reform was the lack of law reports and inaccessibility of statutes, High Court and Court of Appeal decisions.
“We had to benchmark and learn from other judiciaries how to make publicly available court decisions and revive the Tanzania Law Reports, last published in 2006.” In 2019, the Judiciary of Tanzania created TANZLII, which has also incorporated Tanzania Law Reports as part of the database of judgments,” he said.
The Director revealed that court decisions uploaded on TanzLII as of today dated October 11, 2024 are total of 56,711, of which the Court of Appeal holds 15.73 percent below that of the High Court of Tanzania with 64.58 percent.
Decisions of the High Court’s Land Division follows with 9.926 percent, next is High Court’s Commercial Division with 4.819 percent, High Court’s Labour Division with 4.47 percent and the last is the High Court’s Corruption and Economic Crime Division with 0.462 percent.
TanzLII has been a platform for access to justice as public can download courts decisions which are uploaded daily in the platform. It is a good work which supports development of access to justice in Tanzania implemented by Judiciary.
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