KIGALI - The Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) is set to have a Military Disciplinary Court, in future, and Dutch military advisors have been helping their Rwandan counterparts to see that happen.

Col. Ben Klappe, a judge in the Royal Netherlands Army, supervised a two-day workshop on military disciplinary law in Kigali, from November 25 – 26, in which he shared with the RDF the Dutch disciplinary court experience to help the latter set up their own.

The RDF’s Capt. Charles Madudu, a judge in the Millitary High Court, was one of the trainers in the workshop.
"The aim of the two-day workshop was to compare the draft of our disciplinary court with that of the Dutch military disciplinary court so that it can help us improve the content of our draft,” Capt. Madudu told The New Times at Prime Holdings on Friday.

"The ideas got from the Dutch military disciplinary court which has been in existence for long will be helpful in drafting our own, which will later, be a ministerial order.”
Earlier Col. Klappe, was in Musanze district where he also supervised a three-week course of RDF legal personnel training to become legal advisors.

Col. Klappe told his hosts, including senior RDF officers, that: "It has been a great pleasure to train the first batch of legal advisors to the Rwanda Defense Force.”

"It has been a very rewarding experience and this is really an important step forward where you provide senior military authorities like commanders with legal advisors.”

In September 2009, Col. Klappe and two other officials from the Netherlands army visited Rwanda to asses and determine areas in which they (Dutch officials) can build capacities to boost Rwanda’s military

At the time, the Dutch military delegation met with their counterparts in the RDF to discuss the issue of cooperation in military justice.

Cooperation with the Dutch military in legal issues dates one year back and the RDF has been sending at least two officers to attend Masters studies in law in the Netherlands, every year.

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