Dr Jaba Shadrack

(LL.B & LL.M – UDSM, and MPhil & Ph.D. – Warwick, UK)

Director | Project Manager

Jaba is a lawyer and law lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam School of Law, Tanzania since 2009. Jaba specialises in and researches on defence and security policies, public-private delegation, juvenile justice, criminology and penology, local government, constitutional and administrative laws, labour law, legal drafting, document analysis and translation. His PhD thesis titled “Privatised Policing Duties in a Constitutional State: The Case of Postcolonial Tanzania in Socio-Legal Context” has examined some of these subjects in details. Jaba has authored several publications and reports resulting from his extensive research. Some of his works include criminology and penology: Course Manual; Remembering OK. Rugimbana: The Architect of the Tanzania Prisons Service and Beyond; Tanzania: Poverty Reduction Initiatives Continue Questionable, Social Watch Report (2014); the Right to Security of Person and Property in Tanzania: Are Private Security Companies’ a Panacea or an Inopportune to Commoners?; Human Rights and Cultural Dichotomy: A Discourse on LGBT Rights in Africa; Efficacy of Capital Punishment as an Instrument of Deterrence and Retributive Justice: A Tentative Study of Albinos Killings in Tanzania.

This research background has made Jaba an acclaimed consultant in Tanzania and beyond. Jaba is a consultant with George Town University – Department of Economics and the McCourt School of Public Policy (Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation Project) from 2019 to date. He has offered consultancy services to several law firms from 2012 to date, including Standard Attorneys, FB Attorneys, Jolis Attorneys, and Moreh Attorneys, all based in Tanzania. Jaba consults also with NGOs and security firms such as Security Solutions Co. Ltd, Centre for Community Initiative and Awareness in Morogoro, and Copyrights Law with the Tanzania Heritage Project (THP), an NGO working on preservation and digitalising Radio Tanzania Dar es Salaam Music Archives since 2011. Since 2021, Jaba is part of the consultancy team developing ‘the Magistrate and Registrar (Salaries, Allowances and Benefits) Act.

Jaba has played a key role in the preparation of law reports with the judiciary of Tanzania from 2014 to date, training of senior prison officers on human rights and good governance during Tanzania Prison Services’ Annual Conference of June 2012, preparation of HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Audits with the TACAIDS 2014, Assessment of the REDD Project on Climate Change (Pilot Study) in Rungwe District, a project between Ardhi University, University of Dar es Salaam and University of Oslo, and preparation of regulations and by-laws under the Urban Planning Act (2007) between 2012-2015. Jaba has been a team member in reviewing the sustainable management of protected wetlands regulations, the environmental management (control of access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable benefit-sharing) regulations, and the environmental management (control of importation, transportation and disposal of stocks of prior informed consent chemicals, pesticides and their waste) regulations 2012, which are all made under the Environmental Management Act 2004.

Jaba has assumed other research and consultancy related positions with several administrative and tertiary institutions. He has been an internal and independent examiner with the University of Dar es Salaam School of Law and Institute of Finance Management. He has worked as external examiner with Zanzibar Institute of Financial Administration, coordinator and reader in constitutional law, criminology and penology and juvenile justice at the University of Dar es Salaam. Jaba has served as a member of University of Dar es Salaam School of Law Legal Aid Committee, School Board of the School of Law, School of Law Postgraduate Studies Committee, Energy and (Oil & Gas) Law Group of the University of Dar es Salaam School of Law and University of Aberdeen Law School, Coalition of CSOs and CHRAGG) – Preparation of the CSOs’ Report for Universal Periodic Review of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and project assistant of the SPHEIR Project with University of Warwick and University of Dar es Salaam.