APROPOS OF TLS ELECTIONS 2019
Tundu AM Lissu, Tienen, Belgium
Distinguished members,
Very warm greetings from Belgium. I trust this message finds you all in good health. I'm happy to report to you that, after 24 surgeries, my recovery continues with remarkable progress. Hopefully, I should be able to return home before this year is out.
The election season is, once again, upon us. As always, there's a lot of hustle and bustle associated with electioneering. Inevitably, too, there's more than a fair amount of claptrap.
The election season is time to make difficult choices concerning which of the many worthy contestants deserves our trust to bear the heavy responsibilities of leading the Society going forward.
In this regard, please allow me to unreservedly and unequivocally endorse Dr. Rugemeleza Albert Kamuhabwa Nshala for President of our Law Society.
I don't intend to labour much on his loaded academic and professional resumé. The thing speaks for itself. I want, instead, to speak about the man and his fitness for the job in this turbulent juncture in our Society's and nation's history.
I've known Ruge for nearly thirty years, more than ten of which I worked directly with him as human rights and environmental defenders under the Lawyers Environmental Action (LEAT), a public interest environmental law organization he jointly founded in 1994.
Even after my formal departure from LEAT to pursue a career in politics in 2009, I continued to maintain close relations, both professional and personal, with him.
I must, therefore, admit how deeply pained I've been by the malicious insinuations from certain quarters, that Dr. Nshala deliberately withheld, or delayed the release of, funds intended for my medical treatment following the assassination attempt of September 7, 2017.
All I can say and, if needed, prove with documents, is that these malicious smears and innuendos are baseless; the kind of gibberish that can only be understood in the context of the hustle and bustle of elections.
Dr. Nshala is a man of honor, and has always acted honorably in all the many years I've known him. He is a man of principle and of strong convictions, who has dedicated his entire professional life to a defense of human rights, environmental sanity and the rule of law.
He has led by example. His LLM dissertation and SJD thesis sprang directly from the struggles he valiantly coordinated and led against the human rights abuses of rural communities in the wetlands of the Rufiji River Delta, and the goldfields of Central-Western Tanzania, in the late '90s and early '00s.
For this activism, Dr. Nshala has had his fair share of persecution by the Tanzanian government.
In November 2001, following publication of LEAT's call for an independent international inquiry into the Bulyanhulu Massacre of artisanal miners in Kahama District of Shinyanga Region in 1996, Dr. Nshala and, later, myself were arrested and charged with several counts of sedition.
The scurrilous charges were eventually dismissed by the Kisutu Resident Magistrates Court of Dar es Salaam, after six years of want of prosecution.
Ever concerned with the rule of law, the integrity of our electoral process and the health of our democracy, in 2004, Dr. Nshala was instrumental in the filing and successful prosecution of the Legal and Human Rights Center & 2 Others vrs. AG (2006) TLR 240, a major public interest suit which led to the nullification of a statute which would have legalized corruption in our national elections, under the guise of 'takrima.'
The '2 Others' in that landmark case were his LEAT and the National Organization for Legal Aid (NOLA), another public interest law organization.
Such is the man who has humbly presented himself for your consideration as our President for the next one year.
Such is the man I wholeheartedly recommend to you, distinguished members, as worthy of your immense trust to lead the Society in these critical times.
Dr. Nshala will not compromise or equivocate on the critical issues facing the Society and the nation, namely the independence of the TLS and the legal profession; Rule of Law, and Constitutionalism.
He'll not be browbeaten or bought with material reward, or promise thereof, by those who wish to turn the Society into a compliant tool for their nefarious purposes.
He'll not keep silent when the Constitution and the fundamental rights it enshrines, are shredded to pieces by the 'Rulers of Law.'
He'll not look the other way when members of the Society are physically attacked, arrested or otherwise illegitimately prevented from discharging their professional duties as advocates.
Please join me in supporting Dr. Rugemeleza Albert Kamuhabwa Nshala as the forthcoming President of the Tanganyika Law Society.
I thank you for your time and support.