Hundreds of judges appointed

As part of a major restructuring of the national courts system, the government of Rwanda appointed 223 judges on Tuesday to courts at the district and provincial level, as well as to the newly created high court.

"We must focus on expediting justice," Rwanda's chief justice, Aloysia Cyanzaire, told judges at the swearing-in ceremony. "The public should not be kept running back and forth from the courts."

For the last three years, the government has been restructuring the judiciary with changes to the judicial code of ethics and by harmonising common and civil law, especially with regard to court procedures.

The government has also been dismissing judges it considered unqualified. The newly recruited judges had been closely scrutinised and were mostly professional lawyers, justice ministry officials told IRIN. "We want to improve on transparency and professionalism in the judicial system," Johnstone Busingye, one of the officials, said. "We want to give a new image to the system."

Survivors of the 1994 genocide have criticised Rwanda's judicial system for being too slow in bringing to justice people responsible for the genocide.

As part of the latest reforms, a new high court has been introduced with four branches located in various parts of the country. The government had earlier streamlined the Supreme Court, reducing the number of its chambers from six to one. A new chief justice has been appointed to head the country's 12 Supreme Court judges.

"It is about harmonising operations to be able to coordinate the functioning of the court system," Busingye told IRIN. "We want to give hope to Rwandans that the judiciary can indeed be professional, independent and accountable."

He said that in the next wave of restructuring the government would appoint new prosecutors.

On 12 July, Rwandans elected 18,540 officials to serve on mediation committees, known locally as Abunzi, to handle disputes between members of the public before such cases are placed before national courts of law

The government has also introduced community courts, known as Gacaca, to expedite the trials of thousands of people accused of taking part in the genocide. The state judicial system will continue to try higher-profile cases.