A Compulsory Research Report Submitted to Mzumbe University – Mbeya Campus College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for an Award of the Bachelor of Laws Degree (LL.B) of Mzumbe University
The work essentially examines the law and practice on greasing the rights to information in Tanzania. It is so far unopened secret that the rights to information is important to the growth of democracy. In this understanding the study looks into different laws concern the rights to information which integrated such laws and thus be able to see what the laws offer to the protection of the rights to information. Not only but also the work endeavors to see whether what is offered is sufficient or adequate to realize meaningful legal and practical protection to accommodate social-economic situation. Despite of the provision of Article 18, which permits rights to information, still various laws which owe its origin from Article 30(1) of the Constitution of United Republic of Tanzania, that hinders the effectiveness of this rights on various grounds, for example through the use of the name of public interest, the enable man persons in regards to the rights to information, whether natural or artificial not to have access with their interest hence this constitution rights is denied. In this course of the study, the research is basing on investigating the bird’s eyes view on the unreasonable limitations on the rights to information in Tanzania. The constitution protection and guarantee were meant to grant citizens broad access to information that may impact their lives, including state held information in which in Tanzania these constitutional right shaves not been backed by a specific legislation to make the Government release state held information to the citizens on a regular basis or upon request. Basing on the findings of the research the study makes some recommendations in general in order to improve the protection of the rights to information in Tanzania. Another argument is that capacities can be built through other programmatic entry points such as e-governance. It is then not about allocating extra funds to new activities but about streamlining and getting better bureaucratic procedures. In many ways, it is about reinventing government. Access to information is a service delivery issue and there is a need of a greater knowledge to build capacity for supply. Again, it is important to identify those people within government who are willing to push these ideas.