According to officials from the Commercial Courts, statistics show that Nyarugenge Court received the highest number of cases reaching 2,457, more than 50 percent of the total cases received

Benoît Gatete, the Vice President of Commercial High Court, has said that the court has managed to settled a total of 2,151 commercial cases out of the 4,469 received last year.

The 48 percent cases solved have left 2,318 pending. This means that the courts did not meet their ambitious targets of having more than 3000 disputes solved before the year ended.

Gatete attributed the failure to meet their target to numerous court appeals from the three lower commercial courts in Narugenge in Kigali, Musanze in Northern Province and Huye in the Southern Province.

Statistics show that Nyarugenge court received the highest number of cases reaching 2,457, more than 50 percent of the total cases received.

Musanze received the lowest number of cases amounting 489 and managed to solve 348 cases.

"We hope by the end of this year we shall have 60 ercent cases resolved,” Gatete said in an interview.

He also revealed that, this year all commercial courts in the country will start applying digital recording, following support from the Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF).

The move will pave the way for the use of modern Information Technology facilities in courtrooms with provisions for electronic filing and exchange of documents, and possibly electronic presentation of evidence.

The ICF is a private-public partnership focused on improving the continent’s investment climate by removing obstacles to domestic and foreign investment and promoting Africa as an attractive investment destination.

Gatete said ICF has allocated more than $2 million for the development of commercial courts in the country for a period of three years.

The application of digital devices in these courts will break the tedious traditional way of manually recording court proceedings and also assist people to access court documents online. It is also set to increase efficiency and effectiveness in resolving court disputes.

Commercial Courts are viewed as a serious factor that will reduce the cost of doing business in the country. This has also been boosted by news that parliament will this year approve major laws including the law of contract, insolvency law and the company law, with an objective of improving the business environment in the country.

But Gatete said they are still challenged with few judges and the organic law determining the organization, functions and Jurisdiction of courts.

While the law allows one judge in the lower courts to preside over a case, it stipulates that one case in the commercial high court will be presided over by three judges.

"This will be retracted,” he said.  

They have also embarked on a vigorous capacity building program and six staff members are currently being sponsored to pursue masters programs in South Africa. According to Gatete five more would be sent this year.

Commercial courts in Rwanda deal with all sorts of commercial cases, ranging from commercial contracts to bankruptcy, tax disputes, transport disputes, intellectual property adjudication, and consumer protection cases.

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