In a bid to improve the delivery of Justice, the government has implemented a number of reforms that have including overhauling the primary courts. The process has seen the number of primary courts drop to 41 from 60 with many of the smaller ones merged. Courts that were geographically close were merged to ensure they are well equipped with both skilled and sufficient personnel as well as have better working environment. The decision, which was made public two weeks ago through a law determining the jurisdiction of courts published in the Official Gazette, is based on the need to streamline primary courts’ services. The Judiciary spokesperson, Harrison Mutabazi, said that maintaining the 60 primary courts was difficult as some of them did not have enough resources. “When you have scattered courts, they are not efficiently utilized. Optimal use of resources is difficult to achieve because the equipment and personnel you need in 41 courts is not the same as what you would use for 60 courts,” Mutabazi told The New Times last week. The merger saw 36 primary courts combined to form 17 new primary courts that were given new names in certain instances. Only 24 primary courts remain as before. For example, primary courts of Bwishyura and Twumba have been merged to form the Primary Court of Bwishyura in Western Province’s Karongi District while primary courts of Kagarama and Nyarugunga in Kigali City’s Kicukiro District have been merged into Kicukiro Primary Court. “It’s mostly about efficiency. Fewer courts will be better monitored and we will use fewer resources,” Mutabazi said. Some legal practitioners have welcomed the move, explaining that some primary courts were found in remote areas with only one or two judges to handle all cases and they would often be overwhelmed. Théogène Twiringiyimana, a Senior Legal Officer at Legal Aid Forum, a local non-profit that provides legal aid services, said that merging primary courts is likely to help the courts get more judges to handle cases unlike in the previous situation when a judge would fall sick and there was often no one to sit in on an urgent case. “With a primary court now having about four judges, it may improve services because judges will have fewer cases to follow up on,” he said. Twiringiyimana said that though the merger of courts may make access to the courts more difficult for some people living far from the new courts, their cases are likely to get a better follow-up once they are filed. “It might improve access to justice,” Twiringiyimana said. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
