East Africa

Somalia's Supreme Court has ruled that the one-year extension of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's term was unlawful. The court's five-member Constitutional Division issued the ruling in Mogadishu on Thursday, Garowe Online reported. It found that the mandates of the president, the federal government and both houses of parliament had already run out in 2026. The court set out the expiry dates. Parliament's and the federal government's mandates ended on April 14, 2026, Garowe Online reported. Mohamud's term ended on May 15, 2026. The judges declared every action the institutions took after those dates unconstitutional, unlawful, and null and void. The court's reasoning turned on how the 2026 constitutional amendments were drafted. According to Garowe Online, the judges said any amendment introducing new terms of office must state clearly whether it applies to sitting institutions. The 2026 changes did not. The four-year terms under the 2012 Provisional Constitution therefore still applied. The case came from a petition by former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The court threw out his challenge to the amendment process itself, ruling that he lacked legal standing. It upheld his second claim, against the extension of the mandates. The court said the federal government may stay on as a caretaker, but only to run routine business. It ordered all parties involved in the electoral process…

Tanzania presented its human rights record to the United Nations in Geneva on Thursday, Mwananchi reported. Constitution and Legal Affairs Minister Abdallah Ulega led the presentation. He spoke at the fourth cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), run by the UN Human Rights Council. The government said 7.9 million citizens had received legal aid. Courts on the mainland had cut their case backlog from about 10% to 5%, the government said. The average time to finish a case dropped from 95 days to 66. In Zanzibar, the backlog fell from 43% to 18%, according to the presentation. Technology was another focus. The government said digital courts and online hearings had concluded more than 170,000 cases. It said 66 prisons are now linked to the courts online. That makes court services easier to reach for prisoners and remand detainees. On democracy, the government pointed to national talks with political parties. A task force on…