Suspects may soon be required to wear electronic devices instead of being put under provisional detention, thanks to a new ministerial order that only awaits publication in the Official Gazette, it has emerged.  

According to the Ministry of Justice, the system that tracks suspects is finally ready to be deployed.

Soline Nyirahabimana, the Minister of State in charge of Constitutional and Legal Affairs, told The New Times that the ministerial order, which was approved by cabinet on August 14, will be published in the Official Gazette anytime soon.

The electronic monitoring system is provided for under article 70 of the 2019 law relating to criminal procedure, which provides that a suspect may be monitored through technology and lays out modalities through which this will be done.

The technology is reserved for only bailable offences and the competent authority (the organ in charge of criminal investigations, prosecution, or court) will have the discretion to apply (or not to) such electronic devices as bracelets, watches, and ankle monitors, depending on such considerations as the seriousness of the crime and weight of evidence.

It will be applied to a suspect who is subject to provisional detention or bail.

The cost for using the technology will be determined by the competent authority at the suspect’s expense, according to the Ministry of Justice. 

Electronic devices for monitoring suspects work in such a way that they transmit the wearer’s location to a monitoring system via GPS and they trigger an alarm to law enforcers should they be tampered with.

If the offender attempts to travel outside of the restricted geographic area, the device triggers an alarm.

Why it matters

Nyirahabimana told The New Times that this will be an alternative to provisional detention pending trial or during the course of hearing.

"It’s an achievement in terms of dispensing justice as it offers an alternative to provisional detention,” she said.

"On the other hand, it’s good for the State as the suspect will face justice without necessarily being incarcerated (which is costly),” she observed.

Julien-Gustave Kavaruganda, the president of the Rwanda Bar Association, told described the development as good innovation which upholds the constitutional provision that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

‘Welcome move’, but tech ‘should be affordable’ 

"This is a good alternative,” he told The New Times.  "Security organs had concerns that if a suspect is out of jail during the course of their trial, they may escape. Now, the system will be monitoring the suspect’s whereabouts,” he said.

He added: "A suspect will be able to live with their family, study (if they are students), cultivate their farm and do other things that allow them to go with their normal life, but also appear before courts should they be summoned,” he said.

However, Kavaruganda said that the new system will only serve the purpose when it is made affordable to more people and when used appropriately.

The technology, he said, should not be expensive for most people.

"Electronic monitoring should be flexible enough to take into consideration the nature of the work a person does as long as they respect movement guidelines,” he added.

For instance, he said, if a person lives in one district but works in another, the system should be able to accommodate that.

System will help ‘decongest prisons’

Once the system is up and running, Kavaruganda said, the number of people with cases to answer in courts of law will likely increase, while that of those in jail will reduce.

"That will decongest prisons,” he said, adding that it is a better way to dealing with suspects, instead of imprisoning them for months only to set them free when they turn out to be innocent.

According to the 2018/19 report of the National Commission for Human Rights of Rwanda, there were 70, 152 inmates in 14 correctional facilities across the country during the same financial year.  Of those, 42,548 inmates were charged with ordinary crimes, while 27,604 faced crimes related to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The report noted that, generally, congestion was an issue in the country’s prisons, citing Rwamagana prison in Eastern Province as the most congested facility, with 12,949 inmates – more than double its capacity of 5,055 people.