Magistrate deemed biased pulls out

              
RESIDENT Magistrate Godfrey Mwambapa yesterday disqualified himself from conducting the trial of two Romanians, Razvan Pintilie (47) and Robert Kraus (27), who are charged with, among others, occasioning loss of over 717m/- to the government and Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA).

The magistrate, who was hearing the case at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam, reached the decision in response to a request from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) over, among other factors, being biased and lacking impartiality in conducting the proceedings.

Magistrate Mwambapa said that for the interests of justice and in order that justice is seen to be done, he found it prudent to disqualify himself from the conduct of the case and returned the case file to the magistrate in charge for reassignment. He adjourned the matter for mention on May 17.

Earlier, three trial Attorneys, Mutalemwa Kishenyi, Batilda Mushi and Jacqueline Nyantori, for the DPP, had asked the magistrate to with- draw himself from hearing the matter because the republic has lost confidence in him over being biased, impartial and that had failed to manage the proceedings of the trial.

Drawing the sequence of events, the trial attorneys sub- mitted that the magistrate had given a ruling in relation to bail for Robert Kraus, who was the second accused in the case, who had jumped bail and in respect of whom the court had issued an arrest warrant.

When the accused showed up in court premises after some months, the police around ar- rested him and he was taken to the court to show cause why his bail should not be cancelled.

On November 21, 2017, however, the magistrate extended the bail to the accused, ruling that he was bed ridden.

The prosecutors submitted that such findings by the court were given without having any evidence adduced before the magistrate to that effect. According to them, the magistrate stepped into the shoes of the accused, collected evidence on his own and came up with the ruling.

They forcefully submitted that such facts relating to the sickness of the accused were neither adduced to court by the accused person himself, his advocate or sureties.

The trial attorneys con- tended further that the magistrate restored bail to the accused without approval of sureties. Despite being a foreigner, they further charged, the accused was out on bail without any sureties.

Advocates Peter Kibatala, for both accused persons, had requested for adjournment of the matter to al- low him come up with some authorities to oppose to the request by the DPP.

However, the request was vehemently challenged by the trial attorneys because the issue of disqualification by a magis- trate was a judicial matter and that the republic has lost confidence in him and thus could not depend on the wish of the defence advocate