Gacaca courts ruled constitutional

Proposed government legislation to allow the creation of traditional courts, known as gacaca, has been declared constitutional by Rwanda's Constitutional Court, the independent news agency Hirondelle reported on Friday. The decision, made on 18 January but just made public, clears the way for introducing the gacaca courts, intended to speed up the trial of some 120,000 people in Rwandan jails held on suspicion of genocide and crimes against humanity, the report stated. The Rwandan authorities also maintain that the gacaca process would contribute to the fight against impunity and the promotion of national reconciliation. Gacaca courts could start in the second half of 2001 "if all goes well", Hirondelle quoted Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo as saying. The courts will be authorised to try genocide-related suspects other than those alleged to have committed Category One crimes: the genocide planners.

The terms of the proposed gacaca legislation outlaws civil suits against the state because it has already accepted the state role in the genocide and pays five percent of its annual national budget to a reparations fund, Hirondelle reported. Up to now, judges have ruled in favour of civil parties claiming large sums of money in damages but, "realistically speaking, no genocide convict nor even the state can pay out such sums", it quoted the Belgian NGO Avocats sans frontieres (ASF) as saying.