The Supreme Court has said the judiciary needs more than Rwf9.7 billion to ably increase salaries for judicial personnel in the next fiscal year to motivate them and avert the trend where some judges are leaving to seek better pay elsewhere.
The Secretary General of the Supreme Court, Beth Murora, has indicated that this will be achieved through a project meant to "increase the index value of judicial personnel," that is expected to start on July 1.
Index value is a kind of indicator used to determine salaries of public servants. The higher its value, the higher the pay.
Murora made the disclosure on Friday, May 12, during the budget hearing in parliament when the Supreme Court was making a presentation on budget execution for the current fiscal year, and the estimated spending for 2023/2024.
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Murora said that the index value increase for judicial personnel has been discussed for about five years, so far, by different entities including the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, and the Ministry of Public Service and Labour.
"This is a move we expect to be implemented because of the effects we observe, either in the many members of [judicial] staff who continue to leave [the judiciary] as a result of a small salary compared to other entities working in the justice sector. For instance, we have many judges and court registrars who cease their duties and choose to be employees of MAJ because MAJ staff have a higher pay,” she told parliamentarians.
Access to Justice Bureaus (MAJ) were established in 2007 in all 30 districts of Rwanda, under the national legal aid policy. The MAJ staff have powers to provide legal and judicial aid to indigents and the needy, including assisting, counseling, representing and pleading, before all courts, for them, according to the National Commission for Human Rights.
"Also, the trend that we have observed on the labour market is that people are no longer [much] interested to work in the judiciary sector, especially in primary courts, because of small salaries," Murora said, adding that the judiciary needed more resources to be able to address court case backlog.
She indicated that the judiciary requested for more than Rwf9.7 billion "for us to be able to increase the index value [salaries] of the judicial personnel in the fiscal year 2023/2024", but was allocated about Rwf7.5 billion, which implies a financing gap of over Rwf2.1 billion.
"This is the amount of money that is needed so that the issue of index value for judicial personnel is catered for," she said.
Overall, data from the judiciary shows that it has 673 personnel, of which 314 are judges.
Of those judges, she said, 146 are female judges (representing 46.5 per cent), while 168 male judges.
MP Beline Uwineza, vice chairperson of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said that judges are among public servants who get very small salaries compared to other entities, especially in the primary courts.
"Apart from addressing citizens&039; complaints through dispensing justice as their primary responsibility, judges also contribute to the country's economy, such as recovering embezzled public funds through the court cases they try," she said, approving of the move to increase their salaries.
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The Director General of the National Budget at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Rehema Namutebi, said that the judicial personnel salary concern stems from low index value, observing that the ministry will look at ways to address the issue by catering for the financing aspect, provided their increased index value is approved by the relevant public institution.