The Tanganyika Gazette

What Happened to Tanganyika in 1964?

The Oath

Each member of the National Assembly of Tanganyika took an oath before taking their seat. It was prescribed by C.A. Act No. 8 of 1962 (First Schedule):

"I, ________, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Republic of Tanganyika, and that I will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of Tanganyika, as by law established. So help me God."

The same members who swore to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of Tanganyika" voted, on 25 April 1964 to make that Constitution "cease to have effect."

They did this in one sitting, under a Certificate of Urgency, by a single Act (No. 22 of 1964). One document. One assent.

This piece asks a single question:

Under which constitutional provision did the National Assembly of Tanganyika have the power to enact a law dissolving the state that constituted it?

I could not find one. I searched the Tanganyika (Constitution) Order in Council, 1961 (GN 1961 No. 415). I read the CTTP Act (C.A. Act No. 2). I could not locate a public copy of the Constitution itself (C.A. Act No. 1, Cap. 499). Nowhere in the available record did I find a provision giving the National Assembly the authority to dissolve the constitution of the state that constituted it. In fact, what I found was the opposite: their mandate was to protect it.

The Union Act pdf

On Saturday, 25 April 1964, the National Assembly passed the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar Act (No. 22 of 1964). The long title:

An Act to provide for the Modification and Amendment of the Constitution of Tanganyika and of certain Laws, and for matters connected therewith, in consequence of the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

They voted to end Tanganyika and inaugurated their own state in the same motion. The old state died and the new state was born in the same sentence. No constituent consent. No handover. No gap. The death and the birth are the same event.

Section 3 ratifies the Articles of Union. Section 7:

"On the commencement of the interim Constitution of the United Republic, the Constitution of Tanganyika shall cease to have effect for the government of Tanganyika as a separate part of the United Republic."

This was not an amendment. It was a dismemberment.

You swore to protect it. You didn't.

The Gap

I could not publicly locate the full text of the Constitution of Tanganyika, 1962 (C.A. Act No. 1, Cap. 499). Not on TanzLII, tanzanialaws.com, WIPO Lex, or the OAG portal. What I was able to find is the Interim Constitution of Tanzania, 1965, the document that replaced Act 1 of 1962. I was also able to find Act 2 of 1962, the Republic of Tanganyika (Consequential, Transitional and Temporary Provisions) Act, (CTTP). The Speaker's certifications on the Union Act and the 1965 Interim Constitution confirm that section 35 was the mechanism invoked in both cases. The Union Act's own text operates "notwithstanding the provisions of section 35." The precise scope of section 35 therefore remains unverified from the primary text.

This piece's argument does not depend on the specific wording of section 35. It depends on the category of act Parliament was performing, a dissolution of a sovereign state's constitution, and the structural position of section 35 as evidenced by CTTP s. 3 supremacy clause and the Union Act's own "notwithstanding" language.

The full text of C.A. Act No. 1 may be available in physical form at many major legal libraries including the IALS Library (UCL, London) and the National Library of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam. If you have a copy (a scan, a photograph, a photocopy) please contact me. You do not need to identify yourself. You do not need to explain why you have it.

The Record

The tables that follow tell a full history of constitutional change: what was done, by whom, and how it was certified. Every entry is sourced. Every certification is quoted from the face of the Act. Public records, my review as a lay person.

A. Fundamental Changes to the Tanganyika Constitution

Date	Body	Act	Number in its own series
9 Dec 1961	British Crown	Tanganyika (Constitution) Order in Council, 1961	GN 1961 No. 415 (SI 1961/2274)
5 Oct 1962	Parliament of Tanganyika	Constituent Assembly Act	Act No. 66 of 1962
23 Nov 1962	Constituent Assembly	Republican Constitution (No 65 of 1962 GN No.2862)	CA Act No. 1 of 1962
23 Nov 1962	Constituent Assembly	Republic of Tanganyika (Consequential, Transition and Temporary Provisions) Act, 1962 (CTTP)	CA Act No. 2 of 1962
25 Apr 1964	Parliament of Tanganyika	Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar Act	Act No. 22 of 1964
1 May 1964	President (by Decree)	Interim Constitution of the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, 1964	No 32 of 1964 GN. 1026*
5 July 1965	Parliament of Tanzania	Interim Constitution of Tanzania, 1965	No. 43 of 1965
26 April 1977	Parliament of Tanzania	Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1977	Cap. 2

* First mention in the Government Gazette after the presidential decree.

This is the sequence. Eight instruments. Sixteen years. Different bodies. The first row is not a Tanganyikan Act. It is a British instrument, made at the Court of St James, which is why it has no "Act No." and is cited by Government Notice number instead.

B. Mechanism of Authorization

Year	What was done	Mechanism	Certification / Enactment
1961	Independence Constitution (Dominion)	British Crown — Order in Council	Made 27 Nov 1961, Court of St James. GN 1961 No. 415
1962	Republican Constitution	Constituent Assembly	C.A. Act No. 1. Passed 23 Nov 1962
1964	Union Act dismembered Tanganyika Constitution, created a new state	s. 35 (Parliament's amendment power) & Certificate of Urgency	"Passed in accordance with the provisions of section 35 of the Constitution." — Speaker, 25 Apr 1964
1964	Interim Constitution (Decree)	Presidential Decree under Union Act s. 5	GN 1964 No. 246, 1 May 1964
1965	Interim Constitution of Tanzania — one-party state	s. 35 (Parliament's amendment power)	"Passed in accordance with the provisions of section 35 of the Constitution." — Speaker, 8 Jul 1965
1977	Permanent Constitution	Constituent Assembly	"Passed in the Constituent Assembly on this twenty-fifth day of April, 1977." — W. J. Maina, Clerk of the Constituent Assembly

Table B shows the mechanism of authority as the Tanganyika Constitution was evolving until its demise in 1964 and the defective constitutions that follow. Each of the stages after 1961 was a fundamental change to the constitution which required an extraordinary process involving a constituent assembly. Years 1962 and 1977 had a constituent assembly. Years 1964 and 1965 DID NOT. Instead, an amendment power was invoked to fundamentally change the constitution by ending it. That is not an amendment if what you purport to amend ceases to exist after the amendment.

• We should not understand changes on this scale as mere amendments. They are better understood as constitutional dismemberments. Albert, Richard, Zaiden Benvindo, Juliano, and Jiménéz Ramírez, Milton César, "Constitutional Dismemberment in Latin America," Revista Derecho Estado, no. 48 (2021). PDF
• Such a distinction follows the assumption that the authority to amend a constitution implies the introduction of adjustments, modifications or changes within the constitution but does not include the power to exchange/replace it or its original structure. Böckenförde, Constitutional Amendment Procedures, International IDEA Constitution-Building Primer 10, 2nd ed. (2017), p.12. PDF

C. The Contrast

Year	What was done	Mechanism	Enactment
1962	Enacted Constitution + its transitional framework (CTTP)	Constituent Assembly	"Passed in the Constituent Assembly on the 23rd November, 1962." — G.W.Y. Hucks, Clerk of the National Assembly
1964	Dismembered the Tanganyika Constitution; installed the purported Union	s. 35, Certificate of Urgency	"in accordance with the provisions of section 35 of the Constitution"
1965	Replaced the Interim Constitution with a one-party state	s. 35	"in accordance with the provisions of section 35 of the Constitution"

The Union Act of 1964 was self-mutilation because a product of a category error may be void ab initio/nullity – if proven in court.

In 1964 and 1965, a fundamental constitutional transformation was effected by the same ordinary amendment power (s. 35).

Category Error 1 (substantive): The National Assembly (NA) was NOT PERMITTED to pass a bill that would dismember a constitution. Yes, the NA had the authority to amend the constitution (s.35) but LACKED the Constituent Assembly powers to effect the proposed Act, which was not an amendment but a polity transformation: the cessation of a sovereign state's constitution, the creation of a new sovereign state, and the alteration of the citizenship of the population.

Category Error 2 (procedural): Certificate of Urgency is a domestic emergency tool for temporal compression. The 'emergency' was in Zanzibar, not Tanganyika. (NYT, 26 Apr 1964: "Tanganyika's Parliament met in an emergency session to approve the merger in an attempt to protect African nationalism from Communist subversion.")

• Any 'amendment' that derogates this basic constitutional structure, is deemed an ultra vires act: the Court ruled that only the people (as sovereign power) might destroy their Constitution's identity." Vicente Benítez-R. IACL-IADC Blog (2018)

Note: the mechanism in 1964. The act of Parliament's dismemberment of the constitution without a constituent assembly may be deemed both ultra vires (it exceeded the legislative authority it possessed) and a category error (it treated an act of constituent power as if it were an ordinary legislative act).

• s. 5(3)(b): "references to an Act of the Parliament of the United Republic by which the provisions of the interim Constitution may be altered are references to an Act the Bill for which has been passed in the manner prescribed by section 35 of the said interim Constitution"

The Union Act of 1964 was not a union of two sovereign states. The President of Tanganyika prepared for the National Assembly a purported bill that dissolved the state. Under the Certificate of Urgency, the bill was passed. The National Assembly acquiesced. The Republic was dissolved, not by the President's signature, but by the Parliament's failure to refuse.

The dissolved state (Asymmetry): Dissolution of Tanganyika occurred simultaneously as it was being reported in the Articles of the Union as part of a sovereign nation. Zanzibar joined the resulting structure while retaining its own constitution, president, and parliament. Tanganyika, which had 9.2 million people (NY Times 1964), 97% of the resulting Union's population, was left with no government to negotiate the union terms then and in the future.

• A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character. Treaties conflicting with a peremptory norm of general international law ("jus cogens"). Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, done 23 May 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, Art. 53. PDF

Self-mutilation: Defects were in the bill. The NA approved a bill that may be void ab initio. The Union Act is a proposed new domestic constitution embedded in an international treaty. Not one body could tease that apart for an approval. The resulting product may be void ab initio: a constituted body performed a constituent act through a procedure that did not apply. The President's assent is a mechanism of enactment, not a source of authority. If it is a nullity, correctly signed nullity is still a nullity.

1965: National Assembly invoked the same operational defects when purporting to replace the (void) Interim Constitution with one-party state Interim Constitution: the fancy franchise was affirmed.

D. The Fancy Franchise

Date	Enacted by	Provision	Text
5 Jul 1965	National Assembly (s. 35) — not Constituent Assembly	Art. 3(4) + First Schedule	"The constitution set out in the First Schedule to this Constitution shall be the constitution of the Tanganyika African National Union."
1975	National Assembly (amendment to 1965 Act)	Art. 10 introduced	"All activities of the instruments of the people in the Union Republic will be carried out under the direction and supervision of the Party."
16 Mar 1977	Constituent Assembly	Art. 3(1)–(3)	"The Union Republic is a democratic and socialist nation with one political party. The party exercises Executive powers over all matters in accordance with this Constitution and the Constitution of the Party. CCM is the only political party in the United Republic."
16 Mar 1977	Constituent Assembly	Art. 10 (retained)	"All political activities in the country involving the Union Republic will be carried out either by the Party itself or under the direction and supervision of the Party."

I am only entertaining this section as a courtesy to history. It is very possible by now that perhaps we are looking at very serious violations of international and constitutional laws. The first row does the work: the franchise was installed repeating the same operational defects that may amount to category errors and ultra vires. In essence, this appears to now be a de facto government. In this table, we see that the party's constitution became part of the constitution. The last two rows show the proper body (Constituent Assembly) confirming and retaining it.

• "I define "abusive constitutionalism" as the use of mechanisms of constitutional change in order to make a state significantly less democratic than it was before. In referring to the mechanisms of constitutional change, I focus here on formal rather than informal methods of change — constitutional amendment and constitutional replacement." David Landau, "Abusive Constitutionalism," 47 UC Davis Law Review 189 (2013). PDF
• "Systemic legal cheating means that laws and institutions are used in a mala fide way to achieve illiberal or anti-constitutionalist aims." Kovács, Kriszta, and Gábor Attila Tóth. "Review of András Sajó, Ruling by Cheating: Governance in Illiberal Democracy." International Journal of Constitutional Law 20, no. 5 (2023): 2074–2079.

What this means in practice: The President's mandate was defined by two documents: the Constitution of Tanzania, and the Constitution of the Party. They were not separate. Article 3(4) of the 1965 Act made the party's internal constitution (its NEC structure, its discipline provisions, its election procedures, its expulsion mechanisms) part of the state Constitution. A party discipline hearing was a constitutional proceeding. Expulsion from the party was a constitutional act. The mechanism was not theoretical. The fancy franchise was in motion. worldstatesmen.org/Tanzania-Constitution-1965.pdf, page 42.

It is possible that one-party states had declared party supremacy in the past but I highly doubt they embedded the full party constitution as a Schedule to the state constitution. Tanzania's model was unique. And this may explain why a sitting Vice President can be removed by a party discipline committee, and the law calls it "indiscipline," not a constitutional crisis.

Participation in the 1960 election was based on literacy and income minimums. The 71 members were elected by a restricted electorate. The 1961 Constitution promised universal suffrage. The state was dissolved before the people could participate in 1965 elections. The fancy franchise had closed the loop.

The National Assembly of Tanganyika did NOT have the power in 1964 to enact a law dissolving the state that constituted it.

The Union Act No. 22 of 1964 may be void ab initio.

... in my lay person's opinion.