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INTRODUCTION

Criminal laws, These are the laws that that deal with criminal justice by discouraging
and preventing certain conducts and actions that are considered harmful to the society
and provide punishment accordingly. The punishments are in many forms and they are
based In different goals at the end some base on retribution, reformation and deterrence.

Criminal procedure, this refers to the whole process by which criminal cases are
handled within the legal system, this includes the steps that and the rules that govern the
investigation, arrest, prosecution and adjudication of individuals accused of committing a
crime. And so these two legal concepts are created and also have a source and in which
the sources are many but a few of these source include the Common laws, Doctrine of
equity and also The Statutes of general application, and so starting with the common laws
this is how they help in the creation of criminal laws and the criminal procedures,

COMMON LAWS

Common laws these are the un-codified legal rules that come from different cases and
precedents, rather than being solely derived from statutes or regulations, thus this shows
that common laws are derived from the Judge decisions and different cases that have
already been decides, the development of the criminal laws in Tanzania mostly depend on
the common laws and the statutes, the development of the interpretation of the criminal
laws and the criminal offences mostly rely on the common laws specifically on the areas
that the statutes have not been able to clearly talk about. An example of the common laws
that shape the criminal laws I Tanzania is the Mens Rea or criminal intent that means the
intention or the knowledge of a wrong doing that constitutes to a part of a crime, which
means that the ability or the clear state of mind that is required to do a crime meaning that
for a person to be held account for a particular crime he must have Mens Rea meaning
that he did the action knowingly and thus if these conditions are met then one is able to
call a particular action done a crime, such a concept can be called a common law and its
mostly used In the court and thus an example of a case that used this common law in
decision making can refer to the case of Rayness Aloyce Oluoch versus The United
Republic of Tanzania Criminal Appeal no 75 of 2020.

Whereas the case involves the offence of employing a noncitizen of Tanzania without
permission from the relevant authorities contrary to the section 45(1)(q)of the
Immigration Act which states that “ Any person who employs any person who is not a
citizen of Tanzania and who has no pass or permit authoring him to be so employed,
shall be guilty of an offence” and so the appellant strongly argues that She did not
commit the crime knowingly and thus under the concept of Mens Rea the appellant could
not be accused of the crime since the prosecution failed to prove it against the
appellant .Thus this shows that in a criminal case and during the criminal procedure
different common laws are used in order to provide the right and the most correct
punishment or judgement upon one.

It’s very clear that common laws very much facilitate the development of the criminal
laws and the criminal procedures and there are other things that also play a role the
development of the criminal laws and the criminal procedures that include The Statutes
of General Applications.

STATUTES OF GENERAL APPLICATIONS

These are sets of legislations passed by the parliament of England to apply in England but
were of general nature that they would apply in England but they were general in nature and
that they would apply in other territories too 1. Parts of these legislations which were in force
in England on the 22of July 1920and made to apply in Tangayika. These are very essential in
the development of the criminal laws in Tanzania, although they were accepted by the state
there are some necessary conditions that are to be followed so as to use the Statutes of
General Applications which are found in the Judicature and application of law Act Chapter
358, which show when and where these acts have power and under which circumstances will
they function, and according to section 3 of The Judicature and Application of Law Act
chapter 358 Revised Edition 2019 it provides all the necessary conditions under which the
statutes of general applications shall be used .Statutes of general application are a key source
of criminal laws because they define and prohibit behaviors that are considered harmful to
the society as a whole, these laws outline the specifics actions that are illegal, such as theft,
assault, and drug possession, and establish penalties to those who break them Basically the
statutes of general application serve as a foundation source of criminal laws by setting the
standards for acceptable behavior and defining the consequences for each criminal action.

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J.J.Muna(2022)LEGAL METHOD(First Edition)Gunewe Publishes Mwanza Pg 78

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