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 the Mzumbe University
The study generally intended to do an assessment on mitigation of sentences in Tanzania especially on the law and practice on mitigation of sentences and the legal challenges facing the process of mitigation in insuring justice to the offender. In order to undertake and achieve the objective of this research, this report has been divided into five chapter.
The research involved two objectives which is general objective and specific the objectives as follows to examine the law deal with criminal proceeding in mitigation of sentences, to examine the procedures in the process of mitigation of sentences and to examine the legal challenges of mitigation of sentences procedures. The report included the following research hypothesis which are the law governing criminal proceeding is inadequate in mitigation process, the magistrates in general do not follow sufficient procedure to the accused person in mitigation of sentences and accused person knows about mitigation process. The methods of data collection which the researcher used in the collection of data are primary data collection methods and secondary data collection. Under primary method the research used the following tools in collecting the information which is interview and observation, where by under secondary method the researcher used documentary review.
The researcher finding the following when collecting the data from the field the researcher come up with the following findings which are Lack of awareness on the mitigation process, Failure to followed Procedure on mitigation, Gaps in the Existing Laws, Poor evaluation of the mitigated facts by the court, Lack of adducing evidence before the court about those mitigated facts and Poor investigation on the proof of previous conviction about the accused person. Those are the findings which was obtained in the field.
The researcher recommendation the following suggestions as far as this research is concerned, whereby these comments might be helpful in making improvements on the mitigation process and to overcame challenges facing mitigation process which are amendment of the Criminal Procedure Act, enhancing public awareness on mitigation and the government should provide the good system