The minimum sentences act, 1972 of Tanzania

In 1963 a Minimum Sentences Act2 was passed which restricted discretion previously available to judges and magistrates when sentencing convicted persons. No new substantive offences were created by the Act but minimum sentences of imprisonment and corporal punishment were made mandatory for certain itemized property offences (“scheduled offences”). The Act aroused considerable interest both inside and outside this country and there is a long bibliography of comments on it.3 Much of the controversy concerned the mandatory infliction of corporal punishment, of at least 24 strokes, as part of the minimum sentence.4 Many members of the National Assembly were enthusiastic supporters of the corporal punishment provisions,5 although the Government leaders were more restrained: “They are not policies which we like”, said the Second Vice-President, Mr. Kawawa, “and I am convinced that Prisons Officers do not like them either; to administer corporal punishment is an unpleasant thing for any civilised person to do. But we have to make people recognize that to commit an offence against the nation or any of its citizens, is an evil thing which is a disgrace to the man who does it”.