Dar es Salaam. Social media were awash Friday with messages of joy and happiness after the High Court in the city reinstated firebrand private attorney Boniface Mwabukusi in the Tanganyika Law Society’s (TLS) presidential election slated for August 2, 2024, in the capital Dodoma.
Many have interpreted the ruling as a positive development in the collective efforts to ensure the independence of Tanzania’s civil societies, which they consider critical in the actors’ ability to bring about the country’s necessary social and political changes.
It also reminded people of what they can achieve together as citizens when they challenge what they perceive as unjust using available judicial means instead of behaving powerlessly and allowing injustice to happen unchallenged.
TLS appellate committee had removed Mwabukusi’s name from the race after accusing him of being unethically qualified to run for the bar society’s election despite approval from the body’s electoral committee. Disgruntled Mwabukusi took the matter to the High Court, challenging his dismissal from the race.
Butamo Phillip, the presiding judge in the case, ruled that the appellate committee did not have the power to remove a candidate from the race. He also ruled that the ethical claim was weak because Mwabukusi had already been punished for the breach and served the punishment.
The ruling made Mwabukusi the sixth candidate vying for the presidency of the bar society alongside Emmanuel Augustino Muga, Ibrahim Mbiu Bendera, Paul Revocatus Kaunda, Revocatus Lubigili Kimbwe Kuuli and Sweetbert Nkuba.
“I seek to make TLS accountable and relevant,” Mr Mwabukusi, who overcame several obstacles to be in the race, told journalists outside the court premises. “I seek to unify lawyers who continue to be repeatedly divided and thus distracted from fulfilling what is expected of them, contributing to the nation building.”
The reinstatement of Mwabukusi in the TLS presidential race has excited people about the process. Many are discussing the issue online, which only a few netizens discussed just a few days ago.
Mwabukusi’s reinstatement is significant because it happened when some accused the government of interfering with the internal processes of an institution that is supposed to handle its affairs independently by dictating who should run for the organisation’s topmost position.
Mwabukusi made these allegations himself, telling journalists on July 8, 2024, after the appellate committee dropped him from the race, that certain people think they own TLS to the extent that they can dictate who can run it as its president, promising to challenge that belief.
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Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a human rights activist who also once made these allegations, wrote on X that it is now clear who TLS members should vote for as their president if they’re serious about their demands for the independence of their association.
“[Mwabukusi] is the candidate that the state does not approve of,” she wrote. “He’s the troublemaker. He will be the one who will defend the public interest.”
However, Mr Mwabukusi will have to earn the confidence of his fellow TLS members before they can elect him president in the August 2 elections. He’ll have to face his fellow lawyers and give them a reason to choose him over his five other opponents, who are also determined to win the elections.
