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The Commercial Case Law Index is a collection of judgments from African countries on topics relating to commercial legal practice. The collection aims to provide a snapshot of commercial legal practice in a country, rather than present solely traditionally "reportable" cases. The index currently covers 400 judgments from Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
Get started on finding judgments that are relevant to you by browsing the topic list on the left of the screen. Click the arrows next to the topic names to reveal a detailed list of sub-topics. Most judgments are accompanied by a short summary written by subject-matter expert postgraduate students from the University of Cape Town.
Justine Paul Makabi & 50 Others vs Nyaso Enterprises Co. Ltd & Anothers (Land Case No.128 of 2012) [2018] TZHC 69; (24 April 2018) 
Burden of Proof Evidence Law Title to Property Title to real property Property Law CL IndexThe main question of contention was who the rightful owner of the land in the dispute was and whether the person who distributed the farms to the plaintiffs had authority to do so.
The court considered the evidence adduced before it by both sides in an attempt to prove who is the rightful owner of the land. The court observed that despite the fact that the plaintiffs in the matter at hand were 51, only two out of all the plaintiffs testified before the court.
The law as provided under section 110 (1) of the Evidence Act, Cap 11 R.E 2002 states that whoever desires any court to give judgment as to any legal right or liability dependent on the existence of facts which he asserts must prove that those facts exist. The court held that when the question is whether any person is owner of anything to which he is shown to be in possession, the burden of proving that he is not the owner is on the person who asserts that he is not the owner. Since the plaintiffs asserted in the plaint are the rightful owner of the land in dispute it was their duty to prove the first defendant is not the owner of the land.
In the result the plaintiffs were found to have failed to prove the claims they filed to court against the defendants. Consequently, the plaintiffs’ suit was dismissed.