According to the United Nations, to achieve justice, we need more women in the sector because their representation in the judiciary is key to ensuring that courts represent their citizens, address their concerns, and hand down sound judgments.

By their mere presence, women judges enhance the legitimacy of courts, sending a powerful signal that they are open and accessible to those who seek recourse to justice.

Ariane Uwase, a law graduate based in the US, pointed out that achieving equality within the judiciary is not important only because it’s a right, but having equal gender representation in the judiciary makes it possible to achieve just rule of law.

"Women bring their lived experiences to the judicial actions, occasionally bringing a more comprehensive and empathetic outlook that includes not only the legal basis, but the knowledge of the effects a specific non-inclusive law or case laws have on the affected people, in this case women,” she explained.

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Uwase also emphasised that equality and inclusion are fundamental human rights and in this specific case, the judiciary ought to set an example of equality by exercising the highest level of gender parity.

"This is very important because the public expects the utmost equitable judgments from the judiciary, and gender parity is an assured way to ensure that all genders are represented, fairly,” she added.

Furthermore, Uwase noted, gender parity would address gender-biased judgment and perspectives within the judiciary, and as a community, there is still a lot of work to do starting at a family level to accomplish gender parity, not only within the judiciary but in other aspects too.

A judge’s journey

Liberatha Uwimana, a judge at Nyamirambo Intermediate Court, started her journey in the justice sector around 2010 as a court registrar. Over the past 13 years, she has been president to various primary courts.

With many people around the world marking March as ‘Women’s Month’, society also recognises women who play a role in serving justice, like Uwimana, who dreamed of becoming a doctor but found passion in law and justice instead.

When asked what diverted her from her dreams of becoming a doctor, she said that emotions aside, her love for the law was triggered by Rwanda’s history.

Uwimana said she saw many victims fail to get justice right after the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, hence committing to being part of people who deliver justice.

Her career that has spanned 13 years was marked with ups and downs like it is in many other sectors, but the passion and goals she had for her job, the patience and hard work she put into it, kept her moving forward to deliver justice daily.

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Regarding the challenges she faced, Uwimana pointed out that some people still have a mentality of not believing in female judges.

Uwimana said that nevertheless, women judges play a bigger role in mediation cases, family issues, and juvenile cases.

More women needed

Pie Habimana, a Law lecturer at the University of Rwanda, said it is important to have women judges because their integrity, attention to detail, and diligence are key to the success of the judicial sector.

"There is a general assumption that female judges’ integrity is higher than men, female judges are more diligent and pay attention to detail than men,” he added.

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Uwimana calls upon the younger generation and other women to join the career, saying they are capable. "All they have to do is believe in themselves and break the barriers. Women judges play a bigger role in mediation cases, family issues, and juvenile cases,” she said.

Kigali-based lawyer, Innocent Muramira, also pointed out that it is important to have women in the judiciary because they are as capable, educated, and skilled as male counterparts.

Currently, 46.5 per cent of women judges in Rwanda are women, a bigger percentage compared to different other sectors.

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