Editor,

Refer to the Editorial, ‘Penal Code amendment: There is need for more deliberations’ (The New Times, November 30).

It makes no sense to criminalise adultery (essentially the breaking of civil contract as, in Rwanda, marriage is based on civil contract concluded before civil authorities at the district offices), and treat defamation (the intentional and deliberate use of false information, fully knowing it is false, to destroy an innocent person’s character and reputation) as merely a civil matter.

This, in my view, would be an inversion of the proper characteristics of the two transgressions and the appropriate legal approach to their respective remedies.

Mwene Kalinda