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XI. Future Plans for Justice

Fourteen years after the genocide, the challenge of delivering justice for the genocide remains a burdensome responsibility for the State and the judiciary. It appears that officials are now seeking to finish with this task as soon as possible, giving priority to speed rather than to the fairness or thoroughness of the judicial process. 

With President Kagame having signed the recently adopted law amending the gacaca system, virtually all genocide prosecutions will be moved from conventional court to those jurisdictions, including those in mid-trial or awaiting appeal.

In addition, judicial authorities also appear intent on emptying the prisons as soon as possible of everyone detained for or convicted of genocide. A reduced set of penalties, provided for in the March 1, 2007 gacaca law, as well as the ministry order directing that public labor be done before time in prison, will no doubt make it easier to achieve this objective. Several justice officials have suggested that persons who begin by serving the public labor phase of their sentence may not be obliged to spend any time—or any further time—in prison.³¹⁶ The one exception to emptying the prisons would be for persons sentenced to life imprisonment or to life imprisonment in solitary confinement.

Judicial authorities will, however, prosecute in conventional court any cases transferred from the ICTR or from foreign jurisdictions. In addition, prosecutors may be designated to prosecute in conventional court any new charges of genocide raised after the end of gacaca jurisdictions.

Once remaining genocide cases are handed over to gacaca jurisdictions, judicial authorities expect that conventional courts will be able to reduce the remaining backlog of civil and common criminal cases and to provide the necessary judicial support for the commercial and financial development envisioned for the future.

The balance sheet on justice for the genocide will show about nine years of trials in conventional courts—three years of that with very limited activity—and some two years of nationwide trials in gacaca jurisdictions. The decision to end justice for the genocide, like many others throughout the process, will have been made largely for political reasons. Whatever the satisfaction or resentments felt by individuals at the way justice was delivered, the primacy of political considerations in the process will remain a potent legacy.

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