Ramadhani Miyombo Ally and Another vs Republic (DC Criminal Appeal No. 31 of 2000) [2000] TZHC 265 (14 July 2000)

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-2 Under the law, a plea of guilty must coiitain an unequivocal adnission of every ingredient necesâary to constitute the offence with which the accused person is charged. A leading pronouncement of this principle was made by the Court of Appeal for Estern Africa in 1"'.Vi. ,Yonasanialu and 3 Others (191+2) 9 EACA 65, in these terms: "In any case in which a conviction is likely to proceed on a plea of guilty (in other words, when an admission by the accused is to be allowed to take the place of the otherwise necessary strict proof of the charge beyond reasonable doubt by the rosecution) it is most desirable not only that every constituent of the charge should be exlained to the accused but thdt Iie should be required to admit or deny every àonstituent and that what he says should be recorded in a ferm which will satisfy an apDeai court that he fully understood the charge and. pleaded guilty to every element of it unequivocally. .... .. . ... ...... In this case, I am satisfied that this was what had taker place, and I would-, with respect, agree with both learned counsel that the pleas of the appellants., were unequivocal. I pass on to consider the sentence passed. I agree with both learned counsel that the custodial sentence passed was undeserv:Lng in all the-. cir-cumstan. of the case. Of all the principles of sentencing thereare, I would restate here only three for the benefit of the learned trial magistrate.. Firstly, except wh€ a custodial sentence is made mandatory by operation of law, it is generally undesirable for youthful first offenders who have pleaded guilty as well. It brings them into contact with hardened criminals, and makes little of the reformative aspect of punishment. Secondly, where, ashore, the section which creates an offence specifically empowers the court to levy a fine as an alternative to prison sentence, the could should not normally impose a prison sentence unless the circumstances of the case warrant it. The case here was devoid of circunistanoes which would haire warranted the imposition of prison sentence. And thirdly, the sentence handed down was the mimum prescribed under the relevant law. Mcimum punishment must be imposed only in extreme and exceptional cases. Courts have 0000%J0000I

-3-- consistently avoided the imposition of maximum sentence, even where there is a previous conviction, for obvious i'eason that the maximum penalty must be reserved for the very worst of cases; and since one can never say that a particular case before the court constitutes the worst breach c the relevant law, it is always safe to assume that the worst breach of the law is yet to occur. The appellants have been in prison where they did not deserve to be for more than thxee rnonths In the circumstances, that must be taken to have constituted more than sufficient punishment for theme I accordingly allow the appeal, and hereby reduce the sentence as would result in the immediate released from prison of both appellants, Ramadhani Niyombo JUly and Kenneth David Smith 14 July 2000

• For Appelmants Present Nr. iTcise. -. For Republic: Nra Nangela, S . A . ; 7 : '-,.. MOSHI JUDGE,