The Kingdom of the Netherlands and Rwanda are committed to strengthening their cooperation in improving different areas of Rwanda’s justice sector.

The two countries are now celebrating 25 years of justice cooperation during which the Dutch government regularly contributed in supporting Rwanda’s justice sector in different sectors, especially in improving legal services using technology.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands has had a development cooperation relationship with Rwanda for the last two decades.

Development cooperation between the two countries started long before the Genocide against the Tutsi, in the 1980s and was dispensed through Dutch organizations such as SNV (the Netherlands Development Organization) and faith-based NGOs.

Dutch envoy to Rwanda, Matthijs Wolters, said the cooperation that the two countries have achieved is worth celebrating, emphasizing it will get even better in the future as the Netherlands contributes to build a strong and efficient justice system in Rwanda.

"This is a milestone, which should be celebrated not just because of our past partnership but most importantly how far Rwanda has come in building a Justice system from scratch. Our commitment has been budget support, different projects in different facets of the Rwandan justice sector,” he said.

Theophile Mbonera, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, said the Netherlands has been supporting Rwanda’s justice sector, especially the Gacaca courts.

"A lot of court employees were killed during the Genocide, some were tried and sentenced as a result of their participation in the Genocide and others were forced to exile. As a result, the justice sector had to start from scratch just like other sectors did,” Mbonera said.

As the sector was looking to start over, the government of Netherlands supported Rwanda in terms of capacity building and the construction of justice infrastructure.

"As we celebrate 25 years of cooperation in justice, we thank the Netherlands for being among the first to support our justice sector in the rebuilding process,” he said.

Bringing Genocide fugitives to justice

Netherlands is one of the countries that hosts a number of Genocide fugitives as Rwanda continue to push for their extradition or trial.

Two genocide fugitives have so far been extradited from Netherlands and, as the prosecution continues to track down more fugitives in different countries across the world, including the Netherlands, both countries are committed to working together in bringing them account.

"We have already extradited two suspects who are on trial now in Rwanda. Basically Netherlands collaborates with the Rwandan prosecution, and there are ongoing investigations but they take long and have to be meticulously managed as you can understand,” Wolters said

Mbonera said the cooperation will help both countries in the process of extraditing more fugitives.

Going forward, the Netherlands is now committed to supporting Rwanda’s justice sector in its initiative to bring justice services closer to the community as well as in the enforcement of the use of technology dubbed ‘Electronic Case Management System’ (IECMS), to ensure rapid and efficient justice which enables courts to address the issue of accumulation of case backlog