ICTR pledges collaboration to Kigali Bar

KIGALI – The week-long conference between members of International Court Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and Kigali Bar Association ended Saturday with both sides pledging to collaborate. The conference served as a platform to discuss International Criminal Law, and was organised in a move to share and transfer judicial competences. Prior to that, the aim was to provoke interactions between Rwandan and International jurists for knowledge enrichment in the field. ICTR Registrar’s representative, Roland Adjovi, expressed optimism over the success of the conference. He said that he hoped it has helped Rwandan jurists to sharpen their skills. “The development of the International Criminal Law is everybody’s concern. So you don’t have to stay behind,” he told the jurists, noting that more workshops are imminent for the continuous collaboration between two sides. Adjovi who is also a Senior Legal Officer at the Arusha-based tribunal explained that this collaboration is not necessarily in line with the transfer of cases from the ICTR as the latter prepares to wind up its term. “The transfer of cases will absolutely emanate from a judicial decision,” he said in an interview. However, the President of the Kigali Bar Association, Vincent Karangwa, said that such trainings are organised with an aim of improving the performance of jurists, which according to him, would apply to ICTR cases if at all they are transferred to Rwanda. “Jurists will do their job, prosecutors will do theirs and defence lawyers will also have to do theirs accordingly,” he said ending on an optimistic note that cases will end up being transferred to Rwanda when ICTR closes its doors late this year. Participants in this conference will discuss issues related to Genocide and crimes against humanity, equality of arms in the jurisprudence of the ICTR, defences in international criminal law among other topics. Ends