16 of its Judgment to the effect that, Courts in Tanzania are bound to apply
plain language of a Statute to give effect to the intention of the Legislature.
That position maintained its Full Bench decision in Chiriko Haruna David
v Kangi Alphaxard Lugora & 2 Others (supra) where it held that:
"... We wish to observe here by wav of emphasis even if it is at the expense
of repeating ourselves that one of the cardinal rules of construction is that
courts should give legislation its plain meaning... "The traditional wisdom
is that the search for legislative intent is central to statutory interpretation.
And the legislature's intent is normally ascertained from the words it has
used. The word used may be found in the title/preamble/ chapter
headings/ marginal notes/ punctuations/definitions/ etc. of the statute"."
[emphasis supplied]
Likewise, we wish to draw few best Court practices regarding statutory
interpretation which we find important in the case at hand from Canada
where the British Columbia Court and the Supreme Court of Canada had an
opportunity to determine the constitutional validity of section 83.28 of
the Criminal Code, where one of the new provisions was added to
the Code as a result of the enactment of the Anti-terrorism Act in 2001.
In the Matter of an Application under section 83.28 of the
Criminal Code (RE) [2004] 2 S.C.R. 248, 2004 SCC 42, a purposive
interpretation was applied in ex-parte an application filed by the Crown for
an order to compel the "Named Person" to attend and answer questions with
regard to infringement of some fundamental rights".
The brief facts of that ex-parte application has it that, shortly after the
beginning of the trial, the Crown lodged it in the British Columbia Court
seeking an order that a "Named Person", a potential Crown witness, in a
case that involved two persons jointly charged with several offences in
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