The Ombudsman, Anastase Murekezi, has said that after reviewing 465 files requesting for fresh trials on the basis on unfair judgement, his office decided that only 46 of them (representing 9.9 percent) were on merit before he rejected 419 others.

Presenting his 2019/2020 activity report to members of both chambers of parliament on Tuesday, Murekezi said that of the 46 files that were approved for retrial consideration, 23 were filed by women will 22 were by men. One file was filed by ‘Others’ under which government institutions, NGOs, banks and cooperatives among others fall.

"We sorted the files and we found that they fell in four categories. These are civil cases, criminal cases, financial and labour and administrative cases. The highest number of files we receive requesting retrial are the civil cases which in total were 366,” he said.

Although a new law that requires that complainants petition the Ombudsman as a last resort was gazetted in 2018, the number of cases his office receives has not reduced significantly.

In the last five years, the Ombudsman’s Office has received 5,246 such requests.

The law requires the complainant to instead write to a higher court than the one that delivered the judgment.

For instance, if a case was tried by the Primary Court, the complainant is required to petition the Intermediary Court. If the case was tried by the Military Court, he or she is required to write to the Military High Court.

The 2018 law also requires one to petition the court after the verdict exactly 30 days after the trial.

Deputy Ombudsman Odette Yankurije (prevention and fighting injustice) told journalists at the time that the previous law was relaxed and some people could even petition six years after a verdict that they were complaining about was delivered.

"Not anymore. Whether you are writing to the court or petitioning the Ombudsman, you have only thirty days to lodge a complaint from the time you lose a case or from the time the court tells you that there is no case,” she said.

Change mind-sets

Earlier this month, the Chief Justice, Faustin Ntezilyayo said that only three per cent of the cases that are filed to the Supreme Court seeking retrial based on the claim that they were unfairly tried, merit fresh trials.

Ntezilyayo explained that there is need to sensitise Rwandans to spend less time requesting a repeat of court cases since many are upon review found to have been adjudicated within the confines of the law stipulates and basing on available evidence.

"We need the media to help us to sensitise Rwandans on the value of not spending their valuable time pursuing cases that have already been tried by competent courts. Of course it is their right to seek a fresh trial if they are not satisfied but we feel the fact that only three per cent of these cases make it to court means something,” he said.

Ntezilyayo pointed out that although the law gives the Ombudsman the power to request a retrial in a case whose pronouncements he deems unfair, the judiciary has the right to accept or reject it.

"There are times that we review the Ombudsman’s request and we don’t agree based on the articles in the law or the methods that they used to review the evidence,” he said.