A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of laws (LL.M) of Mzumbe University
2013
This research is entitled: The Legal Status of Articles of the Union in Constitutional Making in Tanzania. The Articles of Union are the fundamental laws of the Union between The Republic of Tanganyika and the People‟s Republic of Zanzibar. The articles, therefore, are a marriage certificate between the two independent republics; hence a Union Constitution must derive its mandate from the Articles of the Union.
In other words, the Articles of the Union are the foundation of the Tanzanian Union. Thus, writing a new constitution without first renovating the old foundation is like building a new house on an old cracked foundation, and the risk thereon is the collapsing of the new house due to lack of a strong foundation. The objective of the study is to examine and analyse the impact of proceeding with the writing of a new constitution without first remaking the Articles of the Union the very foundation of the union between the Republics of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. This work is a library and partial field research and thus analytical in nature, involving collection of qualitative data, by way of reading books, articles, journals and the media, so as to determine the root causes for such existing challenges. A total of (11) books and (5) Statutes have been consulted to determine the laws, principles and challenges affecting the writing of a new Constitution without amending the basic law, that is the Articles of Union 1964. The study reveals that not only the Articles were in need of major Amendments but also the making and implementation of the articles in 1964 were mainly carried out by two persons, i.e. Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, the then President of the Republic of Tanganyika and Abeid Amani Karume, the then President of the People‟s Republic of Zanzibar. This study recommends that it should have been wiser to hear the wish of the people, the Articles of Union should have been revisited and accordingly amended so as to give the people a road map to the new Union Constitution; since Union problems will never be solved unless the very foundation is made by the people themselves.