Civil Reference No. 7 of 2004
The respondent, Al Naeem Enterprises Ltd., raised a preliminary objection to an appeal filed by the Tanzania Revenue Authority arising from a decision of the High Court for Zanzibar (Mshibe, J.) in Miscellaneous Civil Cause No. 51 of 1999. The preliminary objection originally contained four grounds, but the third (relating to a certificate of point of law) was conceded to be inapplicable and dropped. The remaining central ground concerned whether the notice of appeal and memorandum of appeal had been properly endorsed, as both documents were endorsed 'for the Registrar' rather than by the Registrar personally.
Whether a notice of appeal lodged under Rule 76 of the Court of Appeal Rules is validly endorsed when it is signed 'for the Registrar' rather than by the Registrar of the High Court personally, and whether such defective endorsement renders the notice of appeal (and consequently the appeal) incompetent.
Counsel for the respondent (Mr. Mbwezeleni) argued that both the notice of appeal and memorandum of appeal were defective because they were endorsed for the Registrar rather than by the designated official, relying on the precedents William Loitiame v. Asheri Naftali and Jackson Reuben Maro v. Hubert Sebastian, in which the Court had held that Form D left 'absolutely no room for delegation' of the Registrar's signing function. Counsel for the appellant (Mr. Teemba) contended that the notice of appeal need not be endorsed by the Registrar personally, relying on Rule 15, which allows the Registrar to 'cause' a document to be endorsed rather than do so personally. He argued that the precedents cited by the respondent were decided without considering Rule 15, focusing instead only on Rule 76 and Form D.
The Court held that Rule 15 is a general provision governing the lodging of any document and permits the Registrar to cause a document to be endorsed, not necessarily endorsing it personally. However, Rule 76, which specifically governs notices of appeal, requires that the notice be lodged with the Registrar of the High Court, and sub-rule (6) requires the notice to be substantially in Form D, which provides a space solely for the Registrar's signature, leaving 'no room for delegation.' Since the notice of appeal in this case was endorsed 'for the Registrar' rather than by the Registrar or a competent officer as defined under Rule 2(1), it was patently defective, rendering the appeal incompetent. Following its earlier decisions in William Loitiame v. Asheri Naftali and Jackson Reuben Maro v. Hubert Sebastian, the Court struck out the notice of appeal under Rule 82, with costs, and found it unnecessary to consider the remaining grounds of the preliminary objection.
The ruling reaffirms and applies the Court of Appeal's earlier jurisprudence (William Loitiame v. Asheri Naftali and Jackson Reuben Maro v. Hubert Sebastian) establishing that the specific requirement in Rule 76, read with Form D of the First Schedule to the Court of Appeal Rules, mandates personal endorsement of a notice of appeal by the Registrar of the High Court (or a person expressly included within that definition), and that this specific requirement is not diluted by the general provision in Rule 15 permitting delegation of the act of endorsement for other documents. The decision underscores the strict procedural formality attached to the lodging of notices of appeal and confirms that non-compliance renders an appeal incompetent, regardless of the substantive merits of the case.
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