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RCN Justice & Démocratie monitored the activities of the Mediation Committees (Komite y’Abunzi) in Rwanda for eighteen months from 2009 to 2011 and presents in this report its main findings and analysis. Such feed?back from the field enables the formulation of recommendations which aim to improve and reinforce the Abunzi’s performance.
Capitalizing on a vibrant tradition and knowledge of conflict mediation in Rwanda, the Rwandan government institutionalized the Mediation Committees for the first time in 2004. To date, Rwanda has 2150 Mediation Committees active at cell level (one per entity) and 416 Mediation Committees at Sector level. According to the law, Committees must first seek to mediate between the parties in conflict; where this is not possible, the mediators must take a decision which can be enforced if one of the parties refuses to comply with it. Cell?level and Sector?level Mediation Committees constitute pre?juRwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development ictional conflict resolution institutions. They aim to provide the citizens a quick and free of charge access to justice and accordingly reduce the case load of the Primary Courts.
RCN Justice & Démocratie evaluated the perceptions of over 500 individuals and 80 citizens’ groups on the practices of the mediators, observed more than 150 mediation hearings, and interviewed several Abunzi, Executive secretaries (cell or sector level) and judges. The analysis focused on four main aspects of the Mediation Committees’ proceedings:
1. Context of the hearings: Our study revealed that the mediators generally commence the hearing of a case less than a month after it has been presented to them. Litigants are usually allowed to choose one of the three selected mediators. Explanations given by the mediators at the beginning of the hearing are in most cases incomplete.
2. Quality of the mediators’ performance: According to our study, only a minority of the mediators take an active part in the questioning. Abunzi tend to limit to a minimum the number of field visits they make as part of their investigation, a fact negatively perceived by the litigants. In 25% of the cases, public participation is not properly considered; parties and their witnesses are listened to unequally depending on their influence and socio?economic status within the community.
3. Mediators’ favoured approach: In only a little more than half of the cases do the mediators seek to mediate between the parties. Hence, disputes are settled by the means of mediation only one time in four. ‘Mediated’ parties believed more in the durability of the resolution. Yet, in 2011 (Repeat Baseline Study) still 58% of the respondents indicated a preference for the workings of the Primary Courts; the judges’ professionalism, mastering of modern laws and impartiality were recognized. In turn, Mediation committees were preferred to engaging local authorities. At the same time, knowledge of the local context is a necessity, according to the respondents.
4. Closing of the hearings: In over half of the cases where a decision is taken more mediators than the three appointed for the case take part in the deliberation. Decisions are not necessarily explained and justified to the participants. 25% of the interviewees complained to be given the minutes of the decision too late to file an appeal; some mediators illegally request from the parties different kinds of ‘compensation’. 81% of the parties who were declared ‘losers’ intended to appeal the Abunzi’s decision. However, statistics show that since appellate Mediation Committees were established at the Sectors’ level in June 2010, very few unresolved disputes reach the Primary Courts. The duration of some disputes in the overall process constitutes a real concern where citizens submit their cases to several successive and overlapping mediating institutions with no satisfying outcomes.
