Yesterday I had an interesting discussion with a judge in Handeni, where I am currently doing my fieldwork. We talked about the special Tanzanian court system which has been set up to settle land conflicts. The conflicts over land here are aplenty. Before the land reform and the passing of the Land Courts Act in 2002 the judiciary was incapable of dealing with the large number of cases and therefore courts were slow and hardly accessible to people.
I told him about a discussion I had had with another judge recently, who had complained about the land courts; he found that the lower level institutions (on village, ward and district level), with their lay judges, were unable to deliver real justice. The Handeni judge did not agree. He said that justice can be brought by law, but that law does not always bring justice.
And maybe he is right. I have been researching on these land court institutions and I found that they are being used and that they are respected in the villages. The village land councils are busy and there are also plenty of appeals to the next levels. When I look into court files from before the 2002 reform, on the other hand, I hardly find any land cases. Villagers back then could not or would not use the formal system.
From a legal point of view the rulings of these village councils and ward tribunals are far from perfect. But at least they are accessible to people. Furthermore, according to the Handeni judge, they often make decisions which are more just than are the verdicts passed by ordinary courts. In ordinary courts the one with the biggest wallet and the best lawyer often wins the case. The village land councils, for all their faults, usually do their best to make the right decisions. Maybe that is not that bad after all.
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