Justice Minister urges bailiffs to restore population trust
Friday, July 02, 2021
Johnston Busingye.

The Minister of Justice, Johnston Busingye has called upon court bailiffs to embrace the new digital system of executing the judicial rulings so as to regain the population’s trust in the justice sector.

He made the remarks during his address at the official launch of Cyamunara.gov.rw , an electronic collateral auctioning system set to enhance transparency in the judgment executions.

The event took place on Friday, July 2.

"The traditional methods of judgment execution had made people lose confidence in the court bailiffs and this had gone viral in different publications as well as social media platforms,” he recounted.

"Giving explanations on these issues was as risky as it sounds, that is why I am requesting you to embrace this system and regain the trust lost, by conducting transparent procedures benefiting the society,” he urged the bailiffs in a virtual ceremony.

Busingye who doubles as the Attorney General also reiterated the essence of these digital means not only in the justice sector but rather in different sectors of life.

"Without fair ruling executions, citizens lose trust in government, the banks also stop giving out loans and without loans, the investment is marred, which later on affects the country’s developmental agenda,” he added.

Prior to its launch, over 400 court bailiffs, 900 cyber café operators and other people concerned were trained on the use of the platform.

Based on the training, Anastase Balinda, the Executive Secretary of the professional Association of Court Bailiffs in Rwanda reiterated their readiness and will to embrace the digital path which he says will facilitate their work.

"As you all know, the operations between us (court bailiffs) and commissioning agents were sometimes frosty, so we are happy about this platform that will require no use of commissioning agents who were most of the times disrupting our work,” he noted, citing corruption and undervaluation issues.

Judgment executions are going fully digital in a bid to curb corruption and undervaluation thanks to a Ministerial Order relating to the electronic execution of enforcement orders, which was approved by the Cabinet on Friday, March 6.

It is set to reduce bureaucracy, save time, go global and provide data analytics, hence transparency in the system.

The execution judgment portal is also part of IECMS, the ministry’s leading platform to disperse justice through the use of ICT.

So far, more than 1300 have started using the portal.