Hurdles in safeguarding the rights of delinquent rtjveniles: case study on the existing situation, law a practice in the city of Mwanza

Children are the most vulnerable and disadvantaged group in the administration of criminal justice system that is why, in Tanzania, during the colonial period there was enacted the Children and Young Persons Ordinance which dealt with children when falling into conflict with the law and now, after a number of decades, the Law of the Child Act, 2009 came in place. The enactment of the new child law was meant and expected to bring changes and remove all hurdles faced by the children but since 2010 when it came into force, children still face the problems experienced before. It follows therefore that this work is researched on the hurdles faced by juveniles in the criminal justice system of Tanzania specifically in the city of Mwanza by researching both the international and domestic pieces of legislation which deal with juveniles. The methodology used in this work is both field work and library whereby interviews and questionnaires were conducted and supplied to informants so as to gather information The work has been divided into six chapters whereby Chapter One gives the background information of the research problem, hypothesis, literature review and research methodology applied, to mention but a few. Chapter Two discusses about the development of international law of juvenile justice wherein international instruments are intensively analysed while Chapter Three discusses the juvenile justice and treatment in other jurisdictions so does challenges facing that system.While Chapter Four discusses about the trend of the juvenile justice system from pre to post colonialism, Chapter Five centers on the research problem wherein the accessibility, enhancement and protection of juveniles’ statutory rights in the City of Mwanza are thoroughly examined and found that there are a number of reasons which results to hurdles in the juvenile justice including poor infrastructures, untrained personnel, conflicting provisions in the Law of the Child Act and other statutes and rules of procedure guiding the conduct of the business of the juvenile court. The last Chapter provides overall conclusion that the nature of the juvenile justice system posses many serious obstacles in the way of affecting its administration and so the need to have more systematic and better system which favours children should be put in place and recommendations have been given to the Law Reform Commission, the Judiciary, the State’s apparatuses including the Police and Prisons to roform laws and restructure their system of working so as to serve the best interest of the child.