This appeal is against the judgment and decree of the Land
Tribunal at Vuga Majestic dated 22/11/2019 in its Civil Case No. 28 of 2017
which was filed by the Appellant. The suit was against the three defendants who
in this appeal are the Respondents. It was the Appellant’s case before the Land
Tribunal that part of his shamba at Kianga Chem Chem had been invaded by
the Respondents who had demolished his house and uprooted and destroyed
different kinds of plants/trees. He therefore prayed for an order that the
Respondents are stopped from the invasion and destruction and also that they
pay him Tshs. 80,000,000/= as compensation for the damages he had incurred from
the invasion and destruction.
The Respondents denied the claims levelled against them.
Apart from questioning the Appellant’s ownership of the shamba in
dispute they also contended that part of the shamba the Appellant was
claiming had been invaded by them belongs to ZAWA (Zanzibar Water Authority)
and that ZAWA had allowed them to use the said part of the shamba for
agricultural activities. They therefore prayed for the suit to be dismissed
because the part of the shamba in dispute does not belong to the
Appellant but to ZAWA.
In its unanimous decision the Tribunal dismissed suit with
costs hence the appeal at hand which, among others, raised the ground ‘That the
Land Tribunal magistrate erred and misdirected herself when she tried the case
in violation of the procedure by dismissing the assessors and replacing them by
other assessors without giving reasons of doing so’.