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Govt must not own people – Samatta
2005-11-26 09:13:52
By By Ludger Kasumuni
The Chief Justice of Tanzania, Barnabas Samatta, has called upon lawyers to enhance democracy, good governance and the rule of law.
Samatta said this in his opening speech to the Annual General Meeting of East Africa Law Society (EALS), and urged lawyers to make sure that the government did not own people, but people were supposed to own the government.
’I have always believed that it is one of the principal duties of all those trained in law to ensure that people own their governments,’ he said.
He added:’Any attempt by the government to own the people must be strenuously resisted by lawyers. Their voices against repression, regardless of who perpetrates it, must be heard loudly and clearly.’
He said it was shameful for lawyers to belong to a camp of dictators or cowards.
He said it was the duty of the lawyers to wage a relentless war against any form of dictatorship.
Meanwhile, the establishment of East African Customs Union calls for harmonization of laws on trade and investment in the East African Community (EAC).
Addressing the same EALS meeting, the Speaker of the EAC Legislative Assembly, Abdulrahman Kinana said with the coming into force of the Customs Union, it has become imperative that laws relating to trade and investment require to be harmonised quickly to facilitate investment, movement of goods and factors of production and resolution of commercial disputes within the region.’
He said since the next step in EAC development is the establishment of EAC Common Market.
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