A Compulsory Research Report Submitted to Mzumbe University – Mbeya Campus College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Award of Bachelor Degree of Laws [LL.B] of Mzumbe University
The new land laws, inter alia, came up with specialized land courts with the view that these tribunals as well will set up an efficient and expeditious means of settling land disputes in Mainland Tanzania. Prior to the enactment of new land laws, land disputes were settled by ordinary courts of law. This was discovered to have overloaded ordinary courts and that the courts of law could not have enough time to deal with land cases. As a result, specialized land courts were put in place. There has been a claim of the inefficiency of these specialized land courts which resulted into the researcher to conduct research on the ability of this tribunal so as to establish its efficacy. The researcher conducted research to determine how far the specialized District and Land Housing Tribunal is efficient in settlement of land disputes as the reason for their establishment. Choosing Dar es salaam City and Long side of Coastal Region as the survey study through observation, interviews and documentary review, the researcher concentrated to find out as to how the specialized tribunal is independent from external interference, the impact of the involvement of the three ministries in administration of these land courts and to see how the land laws established the trustworthy specialized land courts. The study draws the conclusion these tribunals are not independent from the arms of the executive in particular the Ministry responsible for land. The study has found among others that the involvement of the Ministry of Lands and other two different ministries in the management of land disputes diminishes the efficiency of land courts in the country. The land courts face the problem of backlog of cases which results to many unresolved land disputes that render the courts to be untrustworthy