Government attempts to strengthen judiciary

Rwandan authorities sacked some 503 judges this week and appointed 223 replacements for the national court system in the first major judicial reshuffle intended to improve performance and weed out corruption and inefficiency. The head of the judicial reforms, Judge Richard Karugarama, said the judges who were replaced lacked the necessary qualifications and experience required under new judicial reforms, the first to be implemented since the country gained independence some 42 years ago. "It is about professionalism, supporting the judiciary to become a credible and performing institution, [and] giving a new image to the judiciary by improving on transparency, speed of trials and weeding out corruption," Karugarama said. An additional 128 judges are due to be appointed before the end of the year to add to the 223 judges sworn in early this week. Under the new reforms, Rwanda will have a total of 351 judges, Karugarama said. In the past, some 726 judges had been employed in the national court structure. He said some of the removed judges would be given other responsibilities within the judicial system, while others would be removed completely. Survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide have in the past criticised the country's judicial system, accusing it of taking too long to bring genocide suspects to court. The genocide claimed the lives of 937,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, according to government figures. In a bid to speed up the trials of almost 80,000 suspects, Rwandan authorities have begun transferring lower-priority cases to traditional community courts, called Gacaca. To legitimise the traditional courts, local Gacaca judges will soon be undergoing formal training. "They will be trained in information gathering, communication skills, report writing and mediation skills," Charles Kayitana, the spokesman for the Gacaca Commission, told IRIN. Kayitana said the training of the judges would be conducted concurrently with Gacaca sessions. The traditional courts are separate from the conventional judicial system, which now handles only the trial of suspects accused of playing a leading or planning role in the genocide.