A Compulsory Research Report Submitted to Mzumbe University – Mbeya Campus College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for an award of the Bachelor Degree of laws (LL.B) of Mzumbe University
The research was conducted to find out whether it is the right time for legal representation in primary courts as an aspect for fair trial and challenges that are posed to the litigants for lack of legal representation in this research the researcher used both primary and secondary method of data collection to get first hand findings. In primary method of data collection, the information where obtained through interviewing the magistrates, advocates, assessors, litigants and even public prosecutors, at which both the unstructured and structured methods of interviewing where used methods of interviewing were applied. In secondary method it involved documentary review which are relevant to the topic like books, journals, articles, and other unpublished materials which were conducted at Mzumbe university library. The finding of the research show that it is the right time for legal representation in primary court as the issue of lack of legal representation in primary courts is against a lot of laws including the constitution of the united republic of Tanzania, thus section 33(1) of the Magistrates court Act preventing the appearance of advocates and public prosecutors in the primary court is unconstitutional, since the constitution under article 13 (6) (a) which has provided for the right to a fair trial, also a lot of international and regional instruments has provided for this right, thus from the research it has been concluded that section 33 (1) of the Magistrates court Act has to be declared void since it goes against the mother law of the country and that it denies the issue of fair trial.