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What presidential pardon adds up to
2007-12-11 09:50:05
By Lusekero Philemon
A total of 4,049 prisoners will be back to civilian life any of these fine mornings, thanks the reprieve granted by President Jakaya Kikwete to mark Sunday’s commemoration of Mainland Tanzania’s 46th Independence anniversary.
It is quite possible that some of the beneficiaries of the presidential clemency and a section of the larger public will cast no more than a cursory glance at the development and walk away.
These will view the pardon as just another of those routine events that take place on the occasion of a particular national holiday or whenever it pleases the Head of State’s heart to make such a gesture.
Yet this is by no means an inconsequential incident. It has immense direct bearing on the freedom, dignity, peace of mind and well-being of the inmates concerned, their loved ones and society at large.
Prisons are there for a reason, officially mainly to rehabilitate those proved to have broken the law.
People are similarly jailed for a reason, chiefly to help them learn from offences that the law finds them to have committed so that they may become better citizens once they have served their sentences.
We are saying this very cautiously because it is common belief - and common knowledge - that it is not necessarily so that all genuinely `jailable` persons actually always end up in prison or that all the people jailed are actually worse offenders than those continuing to go about their various activities outside prison.
This is to say that no judicial system in the world is so stainless as to ensure truly fair trial of suspects and, come judgment day, unqualified justice for all.
This is notwithstanding the fact that one of the principles long endorsed by the United Nations and subscribed to by Tanzania states: ``The judiciary shall decide matters before them impartially, on the basis of facts and in accordance with the law, without any restrictions, improper influence, inducements, pressures, threats or interferences, direct or indirect, from any quarter or for any reason.``
Kahwa Lugakingira, during his time as one of Tanzania`s most highly rated judges, once aptly noted that judges and magistrates always assume their duties by swearing to do justice without fear or favour, affection or ill-will ``but a virulent virus (of corruption) afflicts Tanzania`s judiciary`` and the very essence of judicial independence.
There is also the fact that even in countries where life in jail is not as much of torture as obtains in others, being sentenced to imprisonment is a regrettable blot on one`s life even when the sentence was wrongly prescribed.
It is partly in this context that we should view President Kikwete`s Uhuru gesture, by way of which 4,049 prisoners are assured of a new lease of life in freedom.
It is a gesture the beneficiaries should reciprocate by reforming and therefore desisting from deeds or behaviour that might make them revert to whatever circumstances that may have led to their imprisonment. It is that simple - and that crucial.
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