The Chief Justice, Prof. Sam Rugege, has said foreign lawyers and judges may soon start referring to Rwandan court judgments as jurisprudences following a new initiative to have major decisions translated to English.

Rugege announced the development yesterday as he responded to questions from the visiting members of the Kenya Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board (JMVB).

The delegation was in the country on a study tour and wound up their visit yesterday.

"Our courts operate in Kinyarwanda and there is a reason for that. However, the inspectorate of courts has started a new programme of translating major court decisions from Kinyarwanda to English,” Rugege said.

"At a later stage, we will have the judgments translated to French as well.This, in the end, will provide foreign jurisdictions an option of using the Rwandan judgments as jurisprudence in their trials.”

The major judgments that may be translated include those of the current cases under trial that were transferred from foreign jurisdictions to Rwanda and other rulings in high profile cases.Meanwhile, Rugege briefed the ten-man delegation about the operations of the Rwandan courts, how judges are appointed, and the history of the country’s judiciary.

Sharad Rao, the head of the delegation, said the visit is aimed at learning from Rwanda regarding the preservation of Gacaca archives.

Rao said JMVB is a board established by the Government of Kenya as a result of the Vetting of Judges and Magistrates Act of 2011, passed by Parliament to create the necessary institutional framework and guidelines for the vetting of Judges and Magistrates.

The establishment of the board was in response to public opinion during the drafting of the new Kenyan constitution, when members of the public expressed mistrust in the judiciary.

The board was tasked to clean up the entire judiciary through a vetting process which resulted into some senior practitioners being considered unfit.