Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda presses a button to mark the launch of the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation Enterprises Day and announcement of the Matching Grant Programme at the Diamond Jubilee Hall in Dar es Salaam yesterday. Left is Trade, Industry and Marketing minister Mary Nagu.

JK appoints seven women judges

President Jakaya Kikwete yesterday appointed 11 judges of the High Court of Tanzania, seven of them women.

According to the directorate of communications in the President's office in Dar es Salaam yesterday, the Chief Secretary, Mr Philemon Luhanjo, said the appointments became effective from May 24, this year.

The seven women are: Sophia Wambura, Crecencia William Makuru, Zainabu Goronya Muruke and Upendo Hillary Msuya.

Others are Atuganile Florida Ngwala, Rose Aggrey Teemba and Rehema Kiwanga Mkuye.

Other new judges of the High Court are Messrs Kassim M. Nyangarika, Gabriel Kamugisha Rwakibarila, Ibrahim Sayida Mipawa and Lawrence Kisenge Nziajose Kaduri.

The Chief Secretary said the president has also appointed Ferdinand Leons Katipwa Wambali to be the Senior Deputy Registrar of the Court of Appeal.

Mr Wambali takes over from Mrs Wambura, the new judge. Before the appointment, Mr Wambali was the deputy principal registrar of the Court of Appeal.

This is the second time for the president to make such high profile appointments in the judicial sector, a move seen to 'fast-track' the dispensation of justice.

In December 2006, the president also appointed 20 new high court judges, thus boosting the department and reducing the delaying of cases that has been common in Tanzanian courts.

Several ladies were also appointed to the high court, and thus increased the number of women Judges in the court.

Among them were Aisha Nyerere, a daughter-in-law of the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Alice Chingwile, who formerly was the deputy director for Constitutional and Legal Affairs in the Attorney General's office.

Others were Iman Aboud, former assistant director for administration in the President's Office (Public Service Management), Stella Mugasha, formerly with the Attorney General's Office in the National Electoral Commission and Zaiduni N. Chocha, former acting deputy registrar in the Court of Appeal.

In 2006 the President appointed two new Lady Justices of the Court of Appeal. They were Nathalia Kimaro and Angela Kileo, who significantly added to the existing number of Justices in the Court of Appeal.

The new appointments come in the wake of an earlier request by Chief Justice Augustino Ramadhan to the government during a judicial commemoration in February this year.

The CJ had requested the government to do all it can to increase the number of Judges and Justices of the Court of Appeal and the High Court of Tanzania.

He said the judicial process in the country was going at a snail's pace as the number of cases kept on piling at the courts - some for over a decade -before judgment is passed.

"We must admit that our court process is at a snail's pace and we do not deliver with the desirable speed", said the CJ.

Speaking during the climax of the Law Day, he noted that it was appalling for court proceedings take an excessively long time to be heard, a move that has been making justice in Tanzania very expensive for the public.

CJ Ramadhan said there were several factors that caused delay. He added that some of them, including lack of enough judges, were beyond the control of the Judiciary.