Is the Zanzibar Contract Decree Cap 149 Appropriate for this Era? Issues and Challenges

Abstract

Contracts have become so common in daily life that most of the time we do not even realize that we have entered into one. Right from taking a public transport (Daladala) to buying foods, innumerable things in our daily lives are governed by contracts. All of these transactions are regulated by laws. In Zanzibar, the law governing contractual relation is the Contract Decree Cap 149. However, this law needs to be reviewed due to the advancement of Science and Technology, lack of some important issues in sale of goods and partnership. This is to say the Contract Decree appears to be insufficient and inefficient in solving some of the issues. Due to those reasons this paper makes a critical analysis on the suitability of the Contract Decree Cap 149 of Zanzibar in the current commercial era. To achieve that goal, the paper will address the legal challenges of the current provisions of the Contract Decree over the current commercial issues in Zanzibar and recommend on how to bridge those gaps between the law and the different current commercial issues which are not addressed into the Decree. The paper will analysis the provisions of the Decree and some literature to come up with gaps and solutions.

Keywords: Contract, E-contract, Partnership, Sale of goods, Contract Decree, Unfair terms, Zanzibar.