In the leading South African case of The State v. Makwanyane and Mchunu, Ishmail Mohamed, J., (as he then was) with his characteristic eloquence observed that

“all Constitutions seek to articulate, with differing degrees of intensity and detail, the shared aspirations of a nation; the values which bind its people, and which discipline its government and its national institutions, the basic premises upon which judicial, legislative and executive power is to be wielded; the Constitutional limits and the conditions upon which that power is to be exercised, the national ethos which defines and regulates that exercise, and the moral and ethical direction which the nation has identified for its future” (at para. 262).

There has been no significant consideration of the civil liability of doctors under Tanzanian law, either in the decisions of the courts of that country or in legal scholarship. The most obvious explanation for this has been the infrequency with which issues of medical malpractice have been litigated. Society and politics in Tanzania have changed greatly over the past ten years, however, and there is some reason to expect that the volume of litigation will increase. This article sets out to explore the significance of such a “legalization” of therapeutic relationships for professionals, patients, the health care system as a whole and wider Tanzanian society. In order to establish the effects of growing legal intervention it is necessary to consider in some detail the applicable rules of liability. As awareness of the possibility of litigation grows, these rules will increasingly form part of the fabric of therapeutic relationships. The following discussion will, therefore, seek to identify these legal principles on the basis of reported Tanzanian cases and precedents from other common law jurisdictions. Three grounds of action will be considered in particular: medical negligence; failure to obtain the patient's consent to treatment; and disclosure of confidential information acquired by the doctor. The latter two types of action have come up for consideration in the context of discrimination against people infected with HIV. They will therefore be discussed here with reference to the special circumstances of the AIDS epidemic.

It is in this spirit that the Voices of the Youth Project was created. At the dawn of a new South Africa, there will for the first time be a Juvenile Justice system. Child advocates across South Africa have been working in tandem with the South African government to create a workable Juvenile Justice system. In doing so, children's rights activists have sought input from advocates the world over, from philosophers, criminologists, and social workers, from teachers, economists, and volunteers, and, finally, from the children.

The 1990s will go down in history as the decade when Africans had the chance to correct and make up for the blunders of the 1960s. Constitutional and multi-party democracy is now back in fashion and many are ready to forgive the errors of the past and make the sacrifices that will make such democracy and the expected concomitant economic progress possible. The daunting task facing African constitutional engineers is how to free themselves, intellectually and practically, from their strings of colonial loyalty, and how to frame constitutional arrangements that are adapted to the prevailing conditions and are genuinely democratic.

In April, 1994, the Law Reform Commission of Tanzania (LRC) recommended, inter alia, that section 160 of the Law of Marriage Act (LMA), be repealed because it constitutes “an unnecessary encroachment [on] the sanctity of marriage and [is] contrary to the spirit of the Law of Marriage Act”. Subsection (1) of the offending section enacts a statutory presumption of marriage in favour of reputed de facto unions that have existed for a minimum of two years. Subsection (2) states that once the presumption is rebutted, the woman cohabitant and the children born of that union become legally entitled to apply to the court for economic support from the male partner. In these proceedings the court has similar jurisdiction as a divorce court, including the making of orders for the division of assets jointly acquired by the couple and the determination of who is to have custody of the children. In 1971 when section 160 was enacted, it was widely recognized that de facto unions had become a social fact which the law could not ignore. Hence, the decision to extend to these unions the same legal consequences that follow a formal dissolution of a legal marriage. However, in so doing the legislature had indirectly raised and yet left open a number of important questions that have continued to engage the minds of judges.

The Supreme Court of Ghana, in The Ghana Bar Association v. The Attorney General, has unanimously decided that, even under the 1992 Constitution, High Court and the Court of Appeal have no jurisdiction in chieftaincy matters. Even if this decision itself is correct, it is nevertheless premised on highly questionable legal propositions and dicta which strike at the foundations of several otherwise settled principles and canons of construction.

The year 1992 saw significant reforms to the Botswana labour law and industrial relations system. Before then, as was the case elsewhere in Africa, the Botswana government had adopted highly interventionist policies with respect to industrial relations. The changes introduced in 1992 were aimed at shifting labour relations to the market place. State intervention, though not completely eliminated, has been greatly reduced as a result. The changes in labour law and the industrial relations system have brought to the fore the debate about the nature, content and extent of workers' freedom of association in the country. The changes mean that more than ever before collective bargaining will play a significant role in the determination of wages, terms and conditions of employment.

Marriage as a social institution has been deliberately protectedas a matter of State policy. Such protection manifests itself in a variety of ways, one of which is the subject of this article. In an attempt to protect the sanctity of marriage, a rule evolved under which spouses cannot give evidence against each other in legal proceedings. In the words of that venerable English jurist, Coke, if this were not so “it might be a cause of implacable discord and dissension between the husband and the wife”. The rule shows itself in strange ways both in criminal and civil cases. For example, the law regards spouses as one person and as such they cannot conspire with each other. Although the institution has been on a slippery slope for a long time with the increasing prevalence of “cohabitation” it has shown remarkable resilience and most of the population still partake and support it. The British bequeathed the rules relating to competence of spouses to Botswana some decades ago and these have since been applied in their pristine purity although the legislature left an escape route by which they could be supplemented. It is this route for supplementation which has led to issues that need to be resolved. Some of these are explored in this article, after a brief historical background of the reception of the rules.

The creditor company obtained a default judgment against the debtor and a writ of execution was issued. The debtor had already divested himself of all his property and accordingly the creditor took out a summons requiring the debtor to show cause why a decree of civil imprisonment should not be made against him. The debtor, though not indigent, failed to answer the summons and an order of civil imprisonment was made by the magistrates’ court. The debtor applied to the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the order.

Sabapathee had been convicted by a magistrates’ court of drugs-related offences based largely on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice. The magistrates treated the accomplice's evidence with caution but nevertheless convicted Sabapathee on that evidence. An appeal against conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court on the ground that the magistrates had misdirected themselves in the manner in which they had dealt with the accomplice's evidence. The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed to the Privy Council.

Section 18(4) (d) of the Child Care Act, 1983, dispensed with the father's consent for the adoption of an illegitimate child. In this case the Children's Court had made an order sanctioning the adoption of a child and the applicant (the father of the child) sought a review of the decision on the ground that section 18(4) (d) was unconstitutional.

In December, 1995, the Constitutional Court made an order declaring a provision of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977, inconsistent with the Constitution, but it suspended the declaration of invalidity and ordered that Parliament remedy the defect by 30 April, 1997, when the declaration would come into force. On 25 April, 1997, the Minister of Justice applied for an extension of the suspension.