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Browsing Law by Subject "East African Community"

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    Legal, institutional and practical challenges of the people-centred principle in the East African community
    (The University of Dodoma, 2021) Mgaya, Gotrib Maternus
    People-centred integration is an aspect underscored in the modern regional integration across the world. The objective of this thesis is to assess the legal, institutional and practical challenges related to the realisation of a people-centred principle in the East African Community, a tool for citizens’ participation in the integration process. It seeks to establish that, despite the lesson learnt from the defunct East African Community of 1967, the legal framework for the current Community is holding a state centric regional integration approach, one of the reasons for the failure of the former East African Community. The study assesses the deficits inherent in the legal regime for the EAC people-centredness as well as practical challenges emanating from the existing EAC legal framework. The study is a qualitative research and employs qualitative research methods. Data were collected through both, field and documentary review. In this regard, key informants and focus group discussions were utilised effectively. The research finds the EAC laws to be ineffective in embracing and implementing the people-centred principle. This ineffectiveness hinders participation of East African people in the realisation of the objectives of the Community. The ineffectiveness revolves around uncertainties related to the legal nature of the Community, relationships between Community and Partner States laws, and failure to recognise a citizen as the primary subject of participation in the functioning of the organs and institutions of the Community. Also, ineffectiveness is related to lack of precise provisions imposing positive obligations on the Partner States and inadequate role of civil society and private sector in taking the Community closer to the people. Further, the study reveals that lack of citizens’ awareness, weak political parties role in the integration process, budget constraints, lack of norms related to the accessibility of information and documents, and theoretical integration dilemma drawback some efforts exerted towards the participation of East Africans in the integration process. From these findings, the thesis concludes that the participation of citizens and other stakeholders in the EAC integration process is weak. Therefore, the adoption of legal and non-legal measures is imperative in realisation of a people-centred EAC to avoid what happened to the defunct Community in 1977