Three new ad litem (non-permanent) judges appointed by the United Nations Secretary General to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have started work.

The three judges who took their oaths last month are Judge Joseph Masanche (Tanzania), Judge Mparany Mamy Richard Rajohnson (Madagascar) and Judge Aydin Sefa Akay (Turkey).

The appointment of the judges was made following a request made by the ICTR President, Judge Dennis Byron, during a meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) in New York last December.

Byron stressed the need for appointing more ad litem judges to replace those permanent and ad litem judges who have resigned and to assist the court in handling the heavy work-load it faces this year.

Towards the end of last year seven judges resigned from the Tanzania-based tribunal that has until the end of this year to wind up all cases on first instance.

Shortly after the meeting, the UNSC  adopted Resolution 1855 which allowed for an increase of the number of ad-litem judges serving at the ICTR from nine to twelve.

In a speech Byron made to ICTR staff last month, he reminded them that; "2009 will be a very challenging year, as you all know, probably the most difficult in all the history of the Tribunal and at least the year with the highest workload ever,”

The entry of the three new judges into ICTR comes at a time when there is a work load of up to ten new cases that will be going on trial, together with the ongoing trial work and the judgment drafting in the other major cases.

The ten new cases include the four that were denied transfer to Rwanda, a move that Rwanda embraced by fully addressing all concerns the ICTR judges had raised in denying the transfers. 

The Special Government Representative to the ICTR Alloys Mutabingwa was upbeat that the appointment of the three judges would enable the immediate assignment of pending cases.

"There are cases that are waiting trial; we don’t expect them to remain pending because this means justice delayed to the survivors and victims of the Genocide,” he said.

This leaves ICTR with an obligation to complete the evidence phase of all trials, the ongoing and the new ones, by the end of this year.

The tribunal was set up by the UN Security Council in 1994 to try masterminds of the Genocide against the Tutsi.

At a glance

Judge Masanche (64, Tanzania) was Judge of the High Court of Tanzania since 1989. Prior to that he worked in the judiciary in various capacities as Resident Magistrate, District Registrar and Judge In-Charge. He graduated in 1970 with an LLB from the University of East Africa.

Judge Rajohnson (60, Madagascar) was General Secretary of the Ministry of Justice since 2002. He worked for several years in senior positions in the Ministry of Justice and as a Judge and Senior Examining Magistrate in the courts of Madagascar.

He has a Diplôme (Postgraduate degree) from the Judicial Studies Institute and Licence (Bachelor’s degree) in private law from the Antananarivo University.

Judge Akay (58, Turkey) was Legal Counsellor in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Turkish Permanent Representations to the UN, UNESCO and to the Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

In this function, he represented the Turkish government in cases before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Judge Akay worked for many years as a lawyer in civil and criminal law.

He graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in 1972 from the Ankara University, Faculty of Law and in 1998, he obtained his Master’s Degree and a PhD in Human Rights from the Hacettepe University, Atatürk.

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