Different stakeholders within the justice sector, yesterday, concluded a two-day retreat organised to collectively look at how they can increase delivery of services within the sector. The fifth peer review retreat for justice, reconciliation, law and order sector (JRLOS) was organised under the theme, “Towards a modernised justice service delivery.” At the opening of the retreat, Chief Justice Prof. Sam Rugege, said the retreat would help devise measures to address challenges facing the justice sector by improving the time within which they serve the people who seek their services. “These challenges include backlog of cases in courts that we want to address to ensure that we deliver timely justice…we also need to tackle some issues related to delays in executing court decisions, reluctance in public assets recovery and emerging crimes like human trafficking and cybercrimes, among other challenges,” he said. He challenged stakeholders to use the available ICT infrastructure to serve people better. “We need to foster new technologies that enable people to file cases in court and submit any necessary documents or acquire a copy of the final verdict through the use of internet without taking much of their time going to courts,” he said. Johnston Busingye, the minister for justice and Attorney General, said the retreat was an opportunity for members of the justice sector to take corrective measures to fix the loopholes that are still existent. “This is yet another opportunity for us to consolidate what we have achieved, embark on what has not been achieved, and put in place measures on what is on a slow pace,“ he said. “Legal reforms, including to the penal code, bettering our engagement within ourselves and with civil society, bringing embezzlement of public funds, corruption, trafficking in drugs and human beings to zero, resolving the issues of street children and youth delinquency are some of the issues affecting our society negatively and the justice sector has a key role to play in resolving them,“ the minister said. The 5th peer review retreat ended last evening. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
