Role of judiciary key – Karugarama

RWAMAGANA – The Minister of Justice, Tharcisse Karugarama, has advised members of the legal fraternity in the country to help the people appreciate the role of the judiciary. Karugarama noted that the creation of Access to Justice Bureaus is further meant to take justice closer to the people. The Minister made the remarks on Monday shortly after opening a two-day training workshop for over 15 law practitioners and district executive secretaries in Rwamagana. “We want to make our judges much more responsive to the sense of judicial understanding by the larger population. In that way, the public sense of justice will be injected into the court operation and administrative decisions,” he said. The country is building the justice system from scratch, he said, but it is on the right track. “We inherited a completely devastated justice system…it was actually inexistent. All structures were in ruins, and we had to start justice afresh,” he said. “The challenges were therefore inevitable, owing to the fact that we were in a post genocide society.” According to Christine Mutimura, a Principle State Attorney, the workshop is intended to streamline the day today operations of the participants. She said that the district Executive Secretaries and legal advisors (Notaries) are supposed to supplement each others’ activities. Mutimura said they cannot afford to work in isolation, since executive secretaries, as important signatories on financial documents normally need legal advice. “Most district officials were in trouble, partly because they didn’t respect or were ignorant of the law. We are drawing a dichotomy between the two officials, and at the same time showing them the importance of complementing each other,” she said. The participants were drawn from all districts in the country. Ends