In November, Moise Nkundabarashi, (a partner at Trust Law Chambers) was elected as the new President of Rwanda Bar Association taking over from Julien Kavarunganda who has been in the office for two consecutive terms.

Nkundabarashi is not new to the headlines as he has been involved in a petition against the Supreme Court in 2018, represented Callixte Nsabimana a.k.a Sankara in a recent trial as well as was part of the team that prepared the Muse Report.

In an interview with The New Times’ Collins Mwai, Moise Nkundabarashi gives insights to his awaiting task list, grand plans, challenges as well as who he really is.

Excerpts:

As the new president of the association and the face of the legal fraternity, what key tasks do you figure await you?

We would like to improve the legal practice by promoting professionalism. We have a bar association that was created in 1997 which had 35 members at the time. The number has since grown to 1,515 lawyers. The Bar association has a mandate to ensure that they maintain professionalism and competence.

One of our plans is to digitize and create tools to reach out to them and ensure they access services with ease.

We would like to expand the cooperation we have with other bar associations to deepen ties to access training and capacity building.

We have female lawyers in our association and want to ensure that we have equity and equality. We also have young lawyers who will need support and mentorship.

We also have plans for programmes such as pension for lawyers and welfare in general. We have a medical scheme that is working but want to keep engaging to ensure that we can further improve their welfare. If your welfare is well taken care of, you are less likely to get involved in underhand activities. .

We also want to approach in a business way, 1515 people organized in an ideal way can engage and negotiate as a market. For instance, if we go to the same telco or gas station we can impact the bottom-line and can be in position to negotiate for a discount as an association. The same case if we are negotiating for car purchase prices among others. We can get lawyers to access subsidized prices.

We recently acquired the Sports View Hotel in Remera, a bank loan which we paid in about 5 years as opposed to the projected 15 years. These investments are going to help us improve the livelihoods of lawyers.

There are also a few challenges that await, which do you find to be the most pressing?

One of the challenges that comes to mind is mutual recognition. We have a challenge because of the challenge of systems we come from, countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania would assume we come from a civil law system which is not allowed to practice in a common law system. However, it is a bit complex as opposed to a systemic issue. A section of players in the markets do not want to open up their markets across trade for various reasons.

What is happening now, is that we are delaying making it legal but it is already happening.

For instance, I have friends across the region who can send me work in Kigali and vice versa. We are overtaken by the trends and lagging behind with bureaucracies. The only thing missing is the right of establishment to go and set up in another country. We are also seeing another move where regional law firms open in different countries and use local lawyers. Can that be qualified as cross border legal practice? Yes it is.

In any case I know that EALA is tabling a bill on mutual recognition of legal practice, it is one of the aspects I look forward to following up on.

Speaking of mutual recognition, it’s been alleged that it could also be a perception of competence levels. Are your members competent to practice anywhere in the region?

I do not think we have a competence issue. If the market opened up, things would move forward and practitioners’ skills can adjust to the market. What would be considered limited competence is probably language where if you have a lawyer from Kigali moved to Kampala or Nairobi where they are to practice in English as opposed to Kinyarwanda which they are used to.

 However, it is no doubt that they would adjust to the language but competence would not be an issue. By opening up the market, that would be put to test.

Let’s talk about independence. Is the Rwanda Bar Association independent in its decisions, principles and positions?

Rwanda Bar Association is an independent organisation. It is independent with regard to the law that sets it up, independent in practice, financing and economic aspects. We raise our budget from members’ contribution, and use it to run activities such as investment, health insurance among others.    

In legal practice, I will give an example of a recent case when a Belgian lawyer tried to step into Rwandan courts without accreditation. Whenever a lawyer comes from another country seeking to practice, they have to seek accreditation from the Rwanda Bar Association given by the president of the association. One of the aspects considered is reciprocity. In this case, we wrote to them and asked if a Rwandan can practice in a Belgian court. The response was only lawyers from the EU region can practice in Belgium. With that response, we gave the appropriate response to the lawyer and he flew back to Brussels. After some months, he landed back and tried to practice.

Our independence is that we have principles, procedures and terms of engagement.

You can also access independence by leadership which is by election of members

For many, you came to limelight when you were involved in a petition against the Supreme Court challenging five provisions of the Penal Code which included criminalization of adultery and publications that humiliate public officials among other articles. What impact do you think that had and are we likely to see more going forward?

When we took the lead to challenge the penal code at the Supreme Court, we thought it was high time that we do something that is in the public interest. It is important to look at the general interest of the public and argue such cases. There is impact, for instance, there were persons who were not prosecuted because of the petition as well as began a conversation on how people view the law. This is something that has an impact. After that, there have been  many petitions to the supreme court after that and a major development was a decision that lawyers can come to the supreme court without having to justify their personal interest in the matters as they are considered stakeholders and knowledgeable on the matter.

We are going to see more of this in the interest of the public in a positive approach ensuring that it has a positive impact.

You were also on the headlines in representation of Callixte Nsabimana a.k.a Sankara, a former spokesperson of the FLN who was found guilty of committing acts of terrorism. How did you come to represent him?

It is a principle in our constitution that whoever is going through a legal process has a right to be represented by a lawyer of his choice. This has been a commonly asked question.  For someone who is charged with the crimes such as my client was, can you imagine him not having representation?

If you followed the case and arguments, it was someone who was on the way to come back to society. It is however not the only aspect one should consider. The constitution gives us a right to represent people with judicial processes. I made an assessment on the matter, looked at his file and did not see a reason not to as he was entitled to due process. The only organ that was going to decide with the verdict was the court which could only happen at the end of the process.

We should all see that the judicial process happens as it should. He had 16 counts presented by prosecution, he ended the process with 5 offenses. While the kind of major penalty is life imprisonment, he got 20 years. That is due process, which is how a justice process works.

Rwanda is a lawful country which means we have to go through processes. That process requires that suspects have legal representation. That is my understanding of my profession and interpretation of the constitution.

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Who is Moise Nkundabarashi?

I am a Rwandan by nationality, born in May 1981 in Burundi where my parents were refugees. Right after the Genocide against the Tutsi, we returned to Rwanda where I continued primary school and later secondary school.

I went to the University of Rwanda in Butare between 2005 and 2008.  When I left, I joined the Rwanda Bar Association in 2010 and started working as a sole practitioner and after 4 years in 2014 I was approached by Trust Law Chambers and they offered me an opportunity to be a partner in the Department of Litigation and Dispute Resolution.

In 2017 I did a Post Graduate Diploma in Legal practice at ILPD. From 2014 when I joined Trust law Chambers, I became a member of the East African law society. In 2016 I was elected by the Rwanda Bar Association to be a council member. I then served since then till now in the council, as the secretary of the Rwanda Bar Association.

I was also happened to be in the team that prepared the report "A foreseeable Genocide in Rwanda and the role of France” also known Muse Report. On November 12 I was elected as the Bar Association President.