Thursday, June 28, 2012

Public urged to make good use of mediators

photo
Tharcisse Karugarama.
The government wants over 90 per ent of cases to be settled by community mediators to enable higher legal officers concentrate on other development projects in the Ministry of Justice.

This was said by the Minister of Justice, Tharcisse Karugarama, while addressing Mageregere residents in Nyarugenge District.

Karugarama said the government wants Rwandans to solve conflicts within their respective communities by local mediators, commonly known as Abunzi, without necessarily going through courts.

Community mediators are  traditionally based services aimed at helping reduce cases that are handled by the mainstream courts of law.

“This business of taking your cases to courts is a waste of time where you move from court to court yet it could be solved by mediators,”

“We are currently building more capacity for the mediators so that they handle all the cases emerging from the communities hence seeing all Rwandans having access to quality justice,” Karugarama said, adding that courts will only handle cases that the mediators cannot handle. Some of them include cases involving money above Rwf3 million and murder cases.

There are over 30,000 community mediators in the country with every district having access to a justice bureau that provides free legal services to the local mediators.

Speaking to The New Times, one of the residents, a 60-year-old and a father of six, John Murisa, said the local mediators have helped his village.

“The mediators have contributed much towards unity and reconciliation in this area because cases are settled by residents themselves,” Murisa said. However, some mediators said they lack basic training on how to handle some of the cases.

“If we could have thorough training on some cases related to finance and land conflicts which we normally receive, it would improve our operations,” Jean Pierre Habimana, one of Mageregere’s local mediators, told this paper. 

A survey conducted recently by Transparency International-Rwanda (TI-RW) on behalf of Rwanda Governance Board (RGB), indicates that 75.9 percent of people who refer their cases to local mediators have full trust in the committees.

The survey indicates that public satisfaction with the mediators’ activities to provide justice stands at 76 percent with their integrity rated at 81.5 per cent. The overall performance stands at 77.2 percent.

Article by Fred Ndoli, Newtimes.
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15037&a=55321


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

LandNet Rwanda Chapter to receive a delegation from South Sudan to learn about the Land Reform Process in Rwanda.


LandNet Rwanda Chapter is the first and the only network in Rwanda that deals with land issues. It is therefore viewed by various actors as a major opportunity in Rwanda in strengthening the capacity of civil society to engage in policy issues, as the best way towards sustainable development.
It is in this regard that on 13th June, 2012, a delegation from South Sudan which has been in Rwanda from 11th to 14th June 2012 to learn from experience of Rwanda on the Land Reform, is visiting LandNet Rwanda Chapter members to discuss and learn from the experience of LandNet members on the role and contributions of the CSO in the Rwanda Land Reform. The visit will be held at Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development (RISD), the current coordinator and host of LandNet Rwanda chapter.