Confusion grips Arusha as Lema case shelved

Written by MARC NKWAME in Arusha 

ARUSHA city was on Tuesday plunged into confusion as many people were wrongly led into believing that the former Member of Parliament for the constituency, Mr Godbless Jonathan Lema, had won his court appeal.

That followed after thousands of people took it to the streets singing and chanting, waving placards, tree branches and flags, bringing the whole city into a stand still for over an hour.

The rowdy procession started from the Regional Magistrate Court premises, along Kanisa Road, onto the main Uhuru Street before proceeding to the Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) regional offices located at the National Housing Estates, Ngarenaro where the former legislator addressed them.

In reality however, the High Court of Tanzania presided by Chief Justice, Judge Mohammed Chande had postponed the final ruling of the appeal case to a date to be announced later.

Chief Justice Mohammed Othman Chande aided by two referral judges, Justices Natalia Kimaro and Salum Massati, was supervising the CHADEMA MP’s case at the High Court registry in Arusha.

The petitioning was presented by Advocate Alute Mughwai, who asked the court to throw away the appeal since the documents contained in its file lacked important, legal clauses. The respondent’s side on the other hand had brought in Mr Tundu Lissu Mughwai who coincidentally happens to be a blood brother to Alute.

Lissu was assisted by Mr Method Kimomogoro. After nearly seven hours of the case hearing, Judge Chande announced that the High Court will decided on a date of which the panel will sit for the ruling because the time allocated for the Arusha’s appeal case had run out.

Thousands of CHADEMA supporters and Lema followers filled both the chambers and the entire court grounds to an overflow. CHADEMA had last April filed an appeal notice against the nullification of Mr Godbless Lema’s election as Arusha Urban MP by the High Court. The party’s appeal was filed by Advocate Method Kimomogoro to the Court of Appeal.

Mr Kimomogoro represented Mr Lema in the election petition in which three members of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) led by Mr Mussa Mkanga had successfully challenged the former Arusha-Urban’s parliamentary representative’s election in the 2010 polls. The verdict to unseat the MP was delivered on the 5th of April 2012 by Justice Gabriel Rwakibalira.

CHADEMA appealed against the ruling claiming it was a “travesty of justice,” citing that the alleged defamatory and abusive language said to have been used by Mr Lema against the CCM candidate, in the preceding campaigns had not been proved because the victim, Mrs Batilda Buriani, who contested with Lema did not appear before the court to corroborate the claims.

Source: Daily News (03/10/2012): http://dailynews.co.tz/index.php/local-news/10130-confusion-grips-arusha-as-lema-case-shelved