ASSESSMENT ON THE LEGAL CHALLENGES ON THE JOINDER OF ATTORNEY GENERAL IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT’S LAND SUITS AND ACCESSIBILITY OF JUSTICE IN TANZANIA.
Access to justice is a cornerstone of the legal sector reform programme in Tanzania, underpinned by constitutional guarantees of equality before the law and fair trial under Articles 13(1) and 107A of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania (1977). However, a persistent tension exists between these constitutional ideals and the procedural hurdles encountered in land litigation involving local government authorities.
Land suits involving local government bodies are increasingly frequent due to competing social and economic demands, family disputes, and administrative conflicts. Despite the existence of specialized lower dispute resolution forums, litigants face severe procedural barriers among them being the mandatory requirement under Section 6(3) of the Government Proceedings Act (Cap 5 R.E. 2023) to join the Attorney General as a necessary party. Under Section 6(4), failure to effect this joinder operates as an incurable jurisdictional defect that automatically renders the suit a nullity, compounded by layered pre-trial arbitration and court-annexed mediation requirements under the Civil Procedure Code (Cap 33 R.E. 2023) and the centralization of proceedings in the High Court, these rigid statutory rules create inordinate delays, high costs, and procedural complexity.
This Article aims to examines the legal and institutional framework governing joinder requirements in land suits against local governments in Tanzania, evaluates their practical impact on access to justice, and identifies the regulatory friction between state centric procedural safeguards and citizens’ constitutional right to a speedy and substantive remedy.
The article employed a doctrinal and analytical review of statutory frameworks including the Government Proceedings Act, the Land Disputes Courts Act, and the Civil Procedure Code alongside relevant case law, the paper reveals that strict statutory prerequisites prioritize state-centric oversight over fluid adjudication. This framework bypasses specialized grassroots mechanisms such as District Land and Housing Tribunals and subjects litigants to duplicative and prohibitive procedural hurdles.
The paper recommends legislative and administrative reforms, including streamlining mandatory pre trial mechanisms, revisiting the absolute nullification rule for non joinder of the Attorney General, and enforcing strict adherence to the core values of Article 107A of the Constitution to ensure affordable, fair, and expeditious dispensation of justice.
