"Recent decades have seen a wave of land law reforms across Africa, in the context of a 'land rush' and land grabbing. But how has this been enacted on the ground and, in particular, how have women experienced this? This book seeks to re-orientate current debates on women's land rights towards a focus on the law in action. Centring on cases involving women litigants, the book considers the extent to which women are realising their interests in land through land courts and follows the progression of women's claims to land - from their social origins through processes of dispute resolution to judgment"--Unedited summary from book cover.

A new order is being forged in Africa. States across the continent are working, fighting, and negotiating in an effort to construct liberal societies and effective government. Organized around the life of Francis L. Nyalali, who served as Chief Justice of Tanzania from 1976 through 1999, Building the Rule of Law shows how judges negotiate new institutional relationships. Through the trials and disappointments of Frances Nyalali, we learn the intricate difficulty of erecting an independent judicial system. But in his success and the success of his homeland, we see the crucial role of justice in an effective democracy.

The essays collected in this volume examine the development of democratic and human rights practices while evaluating the performance of the Appeals Court for the past twenty-five years.

This book is the first study of the development and decolonization of a British colonial high court in Africa. It traces the history of the High Court of Tanzania from its establishment in 1920 to the end of its institutional process of decolonization in 1971. This process involved disentangling the High Court from colonial state structures and imperial systems that were built on racial inequality while simultaneously increasing the independence of the judiciary and application of British judicial principles. Feingold weaves together the rich history of the Court with a discussion of its judges – both as members of the British Colonial Legal Service and as individuals – to explore the impacts and intersections of imperial policies, national politics, and individual initiative. Colonial Justice and Decolonization in the High Court of Tanzania is a powerful reminder of the crucial roles played by common law courts in the operation and legitimization of both colonial and post-colonial states.

The book contains 30 judgements on various legal issues and 5 essays written and presented at different forums by Justice Mwalusanya.

An analysis of the relationships between law, custom, gender, marriage and justice among northern Tanzania’s Maasai communities. When, where, why, and by whom is law used to force desired social change in the name of justice? Why has culture come to be seen as inherently oppressive to women? In this finely crafted book, Dorothy L. Hodgson examines the history of legal ideas and institutions in Tanzania—from customary law to human rights—as specific forms of justice that often reflect elite ideas about gender, culture, and social change. Drawing on evidence from Maasai communities, she explores how the legacies of colonial law-making continue to influence contemporary efforts to create laws, codify marriage, criminalize FGM, and contest land grabs by state officials. Despite the easy dismissal by elites of the priorities and perspectives of grassroots women, she shows how Maasai women have always had powerful ways to confront and challenge injustice, express their priorities, and reveal the limits of rights-based legal ideals. “This is a book that only Dorothy Hodgson could have written, with her decades of work in Tanzania, vast networks in Maasailand, and deep ethnographic knowledge, combined with her deftness in working through more theoretical work on gender and human rights. Closely argued, conceptually sharp, and engagingly written.” —Brett Shadle, author of Girl Cases: Marriage and Colonialism in Gusiiland, Kenya, 1890-1970 “Dorothy Hodgson asks a number of important and clearly articulated questions, and provides thoughtful answers to them using a hybrid of historical and anthropological methodologies that combine in-depth case studies with more empirically-informed macro-level reflection. A concise and useful resource in the undergraduate as well as the graduate classroom.” —Priya Lal, author of African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania: Between the Village and the World “Gender, Justice, and the Problem of Culture makes a significant contribution to the study of law in East Africa and elsewhere among colonized peoples, and it should be required reading not only for academics interested in such matters but for activists and policymakers.” —American Anthropologist “Hodgson’s book is both rich in detail and broad in its implications for understanding struggles for justice for marginalised groups. It deserves the attention of students and scholars of African studies, anthropology, history, political science and women’s and gender studies.” —Journal of Modern African Studies

Today, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) has gained international recognition and is widely used to complement the conventional methods of resolving disputes through courts of law. ADR simply entails all modes of dispute settlement/resolution other than the traditional approaches of dispute settlement through courts of law. Mainly, these modes are: negotiation, mediation, [re]conciliation, and arbitration. The modern ADR movement began in the United States as a result of two main concerns for reforming the American justice system: the need for better-quality processes and outcomes in the judicial system; and the need for efficiency of justice. ADR was transplanted into the African legal systems in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of the liberalization of the African economies, which was accompanied by such conditionalities as reform of the justice and legal sectors, under the Structural Adjustment Programmes. However, most of the methods of ADR that are promoted for inclusion in African justice systems are similar to pre-colonial African dispute settlement mechanisms that encouraged restoration of harmony and social bonds in the justice system. In Tanzania ADR was introduced in 1994 through Government Notice No. 422, which amended the First Schedule to the Civil Procedure Code Act (1966), and it is now an inherent component of the country's legal system. In recognition of its importance in civil litigation in Tanzania, ADR has been made a compulsory subject in higher learning/training institutions for lawyers. This handbook provides theories, principles, examples of practice, and materials relating to ADR in Tanzania and is therefore an essential resource for practicing lawyers as well as law students with an interest in Tanzania. It also contains additional information on evolving standards in international commercial arbitration, which are very useful to legal practitioners and law students.