ATTORNEY GENERAL IN SPIRITED DEFENSE OF SERENGETI ROAD PLAN

Arusha. Legal wrangles dominated the start of submissions for the Serengeti road case in which Tanzania is appealing against the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) for its recent verdict to block the road project.

The government, through the Attorney General’s Office, maintains that the court has no jurisdiction to block construction of the proposed highway which has been criticised by environmental activists.

“Serengeti has all along been conserved by Tanzania and it is the property of a sovereign state”, Principal State Attorney Gabriel P. Malata told the Appellate Division of the Court here on Wednesday.

He argued that no clause in the Treaty for Establishment of the East African Community (EAC) had objected to the construction of the road across the famous national park which, he said, still remained a mere proposal.

Mr Malata made the submissions as the Appellate Division of the Court convened for a scheduling conference for the appeal lodged by Tanzania against the court verdict on June 20, this year, which barred Tanzania from building the road.

The First Instance Division of EACJ in its verdict ruled that the planned tarmac road across Serengeti National Park would cause considerable damage to the delicate  ecosystem which extends to Maasai-Mara Game Reserve in Kenya.

The case was filed in December 2010 by the African Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW), a charitable Pan African animal welfare and community-centred organisation registered in Kenya.

Advocate Saitabao Ole Kanchory, representing the animal welfare group, said failure or delay by Tanzania to ratify the EAC Environment and Natural Resource Protocol was no excuse for it to carry out a project which would have ‘deleterious environmental and ecological effects on the trans-boundary ecosystem.

He added that Tanzania was also bound to adhere to the international and the African continent protocols and conventions to protect the Serengeti which has been declared a world natural heritage site by Unesco.

Lawyers for the Nairobi-based non-governmental organisation had further argued that given Tanzania’s committment to various international and regional treaty protocols on conservation, construction of the tarmac road would also infringe on the EAC Treaty.

The Court under Justice Liboire Nkurunziza, the vice president of EACJ who was the presiding judge at the session, Justice James Ogoola and Justice Edward Rutakangwa directed the two sides to file written submissions. The appellant, the AG of Tanzania, was requested to hand in the submissions in 14 days while the respondent (ANAW through  Kanchory & Co Advocates of Nairobi) was given 30 days.