Gacaca court

Gacaca is a traditional Rwandan legal system, which make the village elders. The term is derived from a type of grass that grows in Rwanda's mountain landscape. Negotiations are in fact sitting out on this Gacacagras.

Traditional Gacaca courts

There is little certainty about Rwanda's pre-colonial history - otherwise it is with the knowledge of the traditional Gacaca courts. Generally, however, an image is drawn, representing the earlier courts as an informal, flexible and community forums where violations of social norms and smaller, inter-family disputes under the guidance of wise, old men were governed the community. Typically resulted from the arbitration awards of the village elders charitable work in the community or reparation (eg banana wine " Urwagwa " or Sorghobier " Amarwa ") of the guilty ones. As a sign of reconciliation, the traditional gacaca sessions were often concluded with a communal meal. The parties to the dispute could be individuals, but usually whole families were involved in the dispute because of the strong family ties in Rwanda.

The traditional Gacaca survived the arrival of Europeans in Rwanda. But in 1924 limited the Belgian colonial administration, the jurisdiction of the courts in civil and commercial areas, which had a slow extinction of the system in the larger cities result. Even after independence in 1962, the Gacaca were also responsible for small quarrels and were simultaneously integrated into the official legal system, which meant the loss of some traditional elements.

Were mainly in rural areas and the courts, however, up to today in dispute settlements of importance and operate partially parallel to the modern Gacaca, which should reappraise the genocide.

Modern Gacaca courts

Formation

The new Gacaca were together with their historical roots primarily arising out of a recent history of genocide against the Tutsi product. The genocide had not only caused immense social and political problems, but at the same time also destroyed all the institutions dealing with the past had been able to accept.

For this reason, the government made ​​in 1995 on the edge of an international seminar in Kigali a call to all academic institutions to seek solutions and strategies for dealing with the past that fit in the Rwandan context. However, it soon became clear that the national and international attempts, complicity of genocide to be condemned, the expectations could not fulfill. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR ) with its small capacity sat well important symbolic character. However, he was unable to satisfy the needs of ordinary Rwandan population. The national legal system in Rwanda after the genocide decimated from 785 to 20 surviving judges, the prisons full of people bursting could also hardly remedy the situation and focused on making the unrecognized by the ICTR planners and instigators of genocide the process. Thus, the government finally decided in 1999 from a pragmatic need to throw the absence of alternatives and without the previous misgivings, for revitalization of the Gacaca courts to deal with the cases of the great mass of the genocide perpetrators can.

A national Gacaca Commission was formed, which designed a template that later served as the basis of the adopted in January 2001 by the Parliament, known as gacaca law. In the summer of 2002, the first pilot courts have already been installed in twelve districts, in November of the same year it has extended the courts to 106 sectors. Since March 2005, approximately 13,000 gacaca courts are spread all over the country. In June 2012, established the Gacaca courts their activities officially.

Structure and competences

The modern Gacaca courts differed significantly from their traditional predecessors: they were enshrined in law, followed formal procedures and granted the rights of the accused more space. Important basic elements such as the participation of the whole community and the goals of reconciliation and harmony have been maintained in accordance with the traditional dishes.

Everyone accused of a crime has been divided into according to the seriousness of the offense committed during the genocide of the original four categories. The Gacaca were given jurisdiction over the categories 2-4, while suspects in category 1 must be brought before a regular Rwandan court or the ICTR.

The gacaca law provided that each administrative unit Rwanda their judges - should choose - the inyangamugayo. Rwanda is composed of four political levels - cell, sector, district and province - which is why initially logical level each got their own Gacaca courts. For efficiency and cost, 2004, the Gacaca Court of Appeal, however, a new were resolved at the district and provincial level, created at the sector level.

Each gacaca court, whether on cell or sector level, consisted of the General Assembly, the seat and the Coordinating Committee. The General Assembly was formed at the cell level ( older than 17 years ) of a cell from all residents; at the sector level met all the judges of the individual cells, as well as the judges of the court sector and the sectoral Court of Appeals.

The seat of any court belonged to nine and five inyangamugayo Messenger. Could be as inyangamugayo elected by the General Assembly, who is over 21 years old, honest, trustworthy and have high morale, further no has served more than six -month prison term and not participate in the genocide. The seat of the Gacaca finally was also responsible for the task of selecting five members from among themselves who took a seat in the coordination committee. This committee met primarily administrative tasks.

The specifications of the General Assembly and the seat at the cell level included the collaborative creation of lists, who lived at the time of the genocide in the cell and who was then made ​​what crime guilty. The seats of the cell and sector courts verified in the following concerns raised accusations and judged according to their area of ​​responsibility. The General Assembly of the sector courts oversaw the operation of the process at the cell level. The sectoral Appeals checked appeals against judgments of the court sector.

What were concerned the skills of different Gacaca, the responsibilities were perceived by the hierarchy of administrative units: the courts were empowered to sentencing of offenders in the third category on the cell level. The sectoral courts dealing with crimes of category 2 and functioned simultaneously as a court of appeal for the subordinate cell dishes. The Court of Appeal took care of appeals against the judgments made ​​by the sectoral. The penalty for offenders could vary between 30 years in prison and reparations or Community Service.

When everything about growing and coordinating body of the national Gacaca activities of the National Service of Gacaca Juridictions ( SNJG ) was active.

Problems

It happened already in some court cases that Hutu extremists witnesses who wanted to testify against members of the genocide, threatened to kill her. In contrast, the state has not found a effective way. But that all participants in the genocide, the process can be made, some judges threatened the witness, who wished to make any statements, pay them instead of the accused the penalty. Such threats are not allowed, but are still present in some dishes. The well- organized hierarchy of the courts allowed but often, this kind of blackmail witnesses quickly uncover. Nevertheless, there were lately due to such threats, many political refugees who were forced to leave Rwanda to Europe mostly.

358952
de