Gacaca Court - How IT Works

How It Works

The Gacaca courts are meant to provide smaller courts to relieve the burden of the larger courts. Criminals are charged with acts against humanity, such as murder and serious assault. These courts are not allowed to try accused rapists, however. The idea is to let the village courts resolve these issues and hopefully provide some reconciliation. The trials are meant to promote reconciliation and justice. The defendant is accused and brought to trial. The trial is held in public, where survivors and the victims' families can confront the accused. The accused confess to their crimes or maintain their innocence. The villagers can either speak for or against the defendant. Since only 5% of the 120,000 imprisoned suspects had been tried as of 2005, the government is hoping the Gacaca courts can both find the guilty and provide reconciliation for those accused. The acquittal rate has been around 20%, questioning whether the accusations are valid

The current Rwandan Gacaca court system, as established in March 2001, involves both plaintiffs and witnesses in an interactive court proceeding against alleged criminals who took part in the genocide. The judges now qualified as Inyangamugayo, who also have basic judicial training, are among 250,000 individuals elected by Rwandans to serve in the Gacaca courts, which are in charge of judging two (of the three) categories of people accused of implication in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.

There are three levels of jurisdiction for the Gacaca Courts: the Cell's Gacaca Courts, the Sector's Gacaca Court, and the Sector's Gacaca Courts for Appeal. These are then organized into 3 parts: a general assembly, which collects facts and establishes the lists of victims and perpetrators, among other things; the Bureau of the Gacaca jurisdiction, which is made of 19 members elected by the General Assembly; and the co-ordination committee, which is designed to coordinate the Gacaca Court's activities.

Each gacaca court has nine judges and has the power to sentence criminals up to life imprisonment, but not the death penalty.

According to the Rwandan government's website about Gacaca courts, their activities are organized into 3 steps:

1. Collection of information relating to the genocide
2. Categorization of persons prosecuted for having committed genocide or having played a role in different genocidal crimes.
3. Trial of cases falling under their competence (or jurisdiction).

The first judgment of the operational phase took place on March 11, 2005.