SECTOR 1 This law-making culture is reflected in the making of media laws. To limit debates (even within parliament) the authorities often use a tool known as ‘certificate of urgency’, which is used to speed up the passing of a law by limiting the level of scrutiny that a bill can be subjected to in parliament. In the past few years, two laws with direct consequences for the media have been passed using this mechanism. They are the Cybercrimes Act and the Statistics Act. Panellists stated that sometimes consultations lead to even harsher media laws – media lobbies failed to stop the enactment of the Media Services Act and may have helped speed up its adoption. In a remarkable show of disregard for their concerns, the Media Services Act was signed into law the day following a meeting between media lobby groups and the authorities, during which the media lobbies raised objections against the law. Public influence on the legislative process paid off in a few instances. The Access to Information Act, for example, was put off for one year due to public outcry. Panellists said media lobbies succeeded to remove a clause that made it illegal to publicly use information obtained through an FOI request. The provision was replaced with a less restrictive yet incriminating one, which made it illegal to distort information obtained through an FOI request. Scores: Individual scores: 24 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator ✓✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓✓ ✓ ✓ ✓✓✓ Average score: Score of previous years: 2.0 2006: n/a; 2008: n/a; 2010: 2.6; 2012: 3.8; 2015: 1.7 Overall Score for Sector 1: 2.2 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER TANZANIA 2019