Caroline Nalule and Anna Nambooze
these safeguards only apply to citizens by naturalisation and not to citizens by birth that may
be wrongly deprived of their citizenship.
The African Court on Human and Peoples Rights has thus noted that under the
Tanzanian law, citizens by birth do not have recourse to a judicial remedy where there
citizenship is challenged118. In the case before it, the applicant had been born in Tanzania in
1979 and held a Tanzanian passport. In 2012, when he sought to register his marriage at the
Ministry of Home Affairs, his passport was retained and he was subsequently informed that his
passport had been cancelled on the ground that he was not a citizen. When he tried to make an
inquiry in person at the immigration office, he was arrested on arrival, detained and beaten. A
week later, he was escorted to the Kenyan border but the Kenyan authorities declared him to
be in irregular status, and expelled him back to Tanzania — where he was not readmitted. The
applicant was forced to live in a ‘no man’s land’ between Kenya and Tanzania. In May 2015,
the applicant emailed the African Court seeking its help. The court had to determine the issues
regarding the right to a nationality and not to be arbitrarily deprived of one’s nationality; the
right not to be expelled arbitrarily from a country; and the right to be heard by an impartial
tribunal. The court found that the applicant had been arbitrarily deprived of his nationality, as
was his subsequent expulsion from Tanzania. Moreover, by law and fact, he had not been
accorded the opportunity to appeal the loss of his citizenship thus violating his right to have
his cause heard. In finding for the applicant, the court ordered the government of Tanzania to
amend its citizenship legislation to allow for judicial remedies where there is a citizenship
dispute; and to take all necessary steps to restore the applicant’s rights, including readmission
to the country119.
3.5 Shifts in Tanzania’s political landscape vis-à-vis the citizenship regime
Prior to the enactment of the TCA, 1995, Tanzania abandoned the one-party system and
embraced multi-partyism in 1992. With the political space opened, the issues of indigenisation
once more gained traction, with some parties campaigning almost solely on that ground120.
Rather than specifically targeting non-African Tanzanians, this time round the debate seemed
to be more geared against foreigners, particularly in the economic sector. The issue of
foreigners in Tanzania disadvantaging the locals had particularly picked up after Tanzania
abandoned its socialist policy and adopted structural adjustment programmes that included
privatisation. Yet during the same period, Tanzania experienced an influx of refugees mainly
from Rwanda and Burundi following the genocide in Rwanda121. Moreover, there was
continued disgruntlement against Asians and other foreigners, who were not only economically
better-off, but also were alleged to hold or have acquired Tanzanian passports illegally, thus
118
Anudo Ochieng Anudo v United Republic of Tanzania, African Court On Human and Peoples’ Rights, App
No 012/2015, Judgement of 22 March 2018, para. 116 available at http://www.africancourt.org/en/index.php/56-pending-cases-details/877-app-no-012-2015-anudo-ochieng-anudo-v-united-republicof-tanzania-details.
119
Ibid. The African Court also gave the government 45-days within which to submit a report regarding its readmission of the applicant. It is not clear whether this was complied with, but presently, the government of
Tanzania has withdrawn its declaration allowing individuals and Non-Governmental organisations to bring
cases against it to the African Court. See https://ijrcenter.org/2019/12/05/as-african-court-releases-newjudgments-tanzania-withdraws-individual-access/ accessed on 7 December 2019.
120
For example, the CHADEMA and later the NCCR-Mageuzi party- see Aminzade (2003), supra note 55, pp.
51-5.
121
Aminzade (2013a), supra note 5, p. 302.
RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/6 - © 2020 Author(s)
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