Is the forfeiture of criminally-acquired property in Tanzania compliant with the Constitution?

SUMMARY Asset recovery, which involves the forfeiture of criminally-acquired property, is considered to be an effective mechanism of addressing serious and organised crime within national boundaries and across international frontiers. This is a paradigm shift from penal law and policy-making bodies of concentrating on persons only to also address their minds to property. The current legal position is that asset recovery in Tanzania is conviction based. This means that forfeiture orders must be preceded by the conviction of an accused. When carried out as expected, the mechanism has an impact of depriving criminals of their ill-gotten wealth, thereby striking them at a point where it hurts most. All this is aimed at ensuring that the convict is denied the enjoyment of the fruits of his criminal acts, serving as a deterrent and an attempt by the state to suppress the conditions that lead to unlawful activities. It disrupts criminal activities and prevents the possibilities of using the proceeds of crime to reinvest in other forms of crime. Tanzania has a legal and institutional framework that deals with the forfeiture of criminally-acquired assets. However, the basic question into which this article enquires is whether this framework is human rights compliant. To respond to this question, the discussion looks at the provisions of the Bill of Rights as entrenched in the country's Constitution in relation to the asset recovery legal regime and inquires whether the latter reflects those constitutional provisions. Despite some limitations that are apparent in the course of enforcing legal provisions on asset recovery, the article concludes that all Tanzanians, including suspects, are treated equally before the law. As such, they are all expected to enjoy the rights and freedoms that are contained in the Constitution. There are avenues through which those who feel aggrieved can pursue their complaints. Key words: forfeiture; illegally-acquired property; concealing profits from crime; Constitution; human rights compliance