Friday, June 18, 2010

Court allows ‘Wanamaombi’ to challenge RC’s restrictions

A longstanding row between the Roman Catholic Church Sumbawanga Diocese and members of an excommunicated prayer faction is now set for a fresh court battle.

The Court of Appeal seating in Dar es Salaam paved way for the Marian Faith Healing Centre (MFHC) to challenge a decision by the church to bar the group from participating in prayers and other religious services of the church.

Members of the group dubbed ‘Wanamaombi’ appealed against a High Court decision that declined to hear their grievances after an earlier defeat in a case filed against them by the Sumbawanga Diocese about a decade ago.

With the Court of Appeal’s judgment on Tuesday, the MFHC leader, Father Felician Nkwera, will now continue to disagree with the Sumbawanga court’s decision to grant the diocese the mandate to kick the group members out of the church premises.

The High Court dismissed the initial appeal on grounds that it was not filed within a 90-day limit imposed on such cases.

The religious faction, which was accused of distorting the Roman Catholic Church doctrine, secured the reprieve on Tuesday when Judges January Msoffe, Nathalia Kimaro and Bernard Luanda said that there was merit in their appeal and ordered that it be fully heard and determined by the High Court.

The Appeal Court’s deputy registrar, Ms Neema Chusi, read the judgment on behalf of the three-member bench. The judges said: “the High Court ought to have addressed itself more carefully on the record before it and the applicable law in deciding whether or not the appeal was time barred.”

Soon after the judgment was read out, Father Nkwera, the excommunicated priest, led about 20 MFHC followers along with their lawyer, Mr Sylvester Shayo, in a prayer session inside the courtroom. They knelt down as Father Nkwera raised his hands with a sigh of relief.

The church leadership has all along been condemning the group allegedly for distorting the Roman Catholic faith and for forcing its way into the church premises regardless of the ex-communication stipulated in the 1999 Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC) decree.

The group maintained that the excommunication was null and void, arguing that TEC failed to hold a fair trial and that it breached the natural justice as well as a canon law code.

The Sumbawanga Diocese further accused members of the faction of forcefully entering into the church premises in which they disturbed and interfered with prayer sessions, as they shouted out loudly.

Mr Shayo filed an appeal against registered trustees of the Roman Catholic Church in Sumbawanga Diocese where the group was rejected in 2006. He argued that the High Court had erred in holding that the appeal to challenge the church’s restrictions was time barred.

The appellants argued that it was not their fault, as they frequently followed up on copies of the decree and the judgment to institute the appeal only to obtain them in six months’ time.

The Court of Appeal said the period between February 5, and December 15, 2003, which the appellants used for following up on the decree, ought to be excluded while determining the time.

SIC: TC