The media, civil society organisations as well as the Police and public prosecutors should do more on highlighting corruption and impartiality in courts if access to justice is to improve, officials at Transparency International-Rwanda (TI-Rwanda) have said.

Senior officials at anti-corruption body made the call, last week, in Kigali at the release of findings of a study the organisation conducted in 2014 about professionalism and accountability of Rwandan courts.

The study, which analysed 257 court cases and interviewed 2,804 respondents, established that high court fees, perceived partiality of judges, lack of independence and corruption of judges are the main challenges to access to justice in the country.

The Executive Secretary of TI-Rwanda, Apollinaire Mupiganyi, called on every Rwandan to play a role in reporting corruption in courts and to hold judges to account whenever they feel that they haven’t been impartial enough in rendering their verdicts.

"The media and the civil society need to act quickly to ensure that courts improve their service delivery. That’s how courts can continue to improve their services day by day, year by year,” Mupiganyi told The New Times shortly after presenting TI-Rwanda’s study findings on the performance of courts.

Study findings

Out of the 2,804 respondents interviewed in the study, 9.1 per cent said that they perceived judges as corrupt, 31 per cent said that judges are partial, while 33.6 per cent didn’t go to court because they couldn’t afford court fees that range from Rwf25,000 to Rwf100,000.

Access to justice for Rwandans is also hampered by the large backlog of cases, which makes the time it takes for trials to take place too long, as well as illegal arrests and detention.

"Despite improvements in reducing the backlogs of court hearings, still over 20 per cent of respondents claim waiting one year and longer to come to the first hearing since the complaint was lodged,” reads part of the findings.

Graft in the Judiciary

Regarding corruption by judges, the study indicates that the average amount spent on a bribe is as high as Rwf642,989 per transaction, which is very high given the average Rwf20,000 per bribe transaction, according to TI-Rwanda’s bribery index.

"Issues of corruption stay underreported, with low incidence of whistleblowers coming forward,” the report noted.

According to the Inspector General of Courts, Regis Rukundakuvuga, TI-Rwanda has done a great showing where courts stand today and it’s up to the judges to think critically about their performance and improve their service to the people.

"There are always measures to fight corruption but it doesn’t seem to go away. Judges need to think about this and work towards eradicating the vice,” Rukundakuvuga said.

Mupiganyi said TI-Rwanda will keep conducting studies on how the courts perform and he lauded the cooperation of the government.

"We need to work together to improve our justice system. There is political will on the part of officials to welcome discussions on how to improve the judicial sector and we need to take advantage and give our contribution,” Mupiganyi said.

TI-Rwanda’s project to assess professionalism and accountability of Rwandan courts was supported by the government and the European Union.

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