We Are Judges Now: The Elected Lay Jurists of Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts

• In Event: Atrocity Crimes and Transitional Justice

Abstract

In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the Government of Rwanda created courts to hold hundreds of thousands of suspected génocidaires accountable. These gacaca courts were instituted in local communities, and each community elected lay jurists known as inyangamugayo to preside over them. While much scholarship has examined the gacaca courts, we know little about the 250,000 women and men who volunteered their time as inyangamugayo weekly between 2002 and 2012. Accordingly, this paper asks two interrelated questions: 1) How did the inyangamugayo understand accountability in the context of genocide, and 2) How has their involvement with the courts influenced their lives today? To address these questions, the paper analyzes 120 interviews with a randomly selected sample of inyangamugayo in four Rwandan sectors. Interviews reveal a high degree of professional commitment among inyangamugayo, illustrating that many saw their main duties as promoting reconciliation and accountability, which was often linked to deterrence. These duties exacted a heavy personal toll, however, due to the demanding nature of the uncompensated work. Unlike judges in many other parts of the world, the inyangamugayo continued to live and work in extremely close proximity to those they sentenced—and almost every one of those neighbors had been deeply touched by the genocide, the justice system response, and their work as judges. This fact alongside their often marginal economic circumstances placed the inyangamugayo in an especially vulnerable position, raising questions that must be considered when local courts are used to hold perpetrators of genocide accountable.

Authors

• Hollie Nyseth Brehm, The Ohio State University

• Christopher Uggen, University of Minnesota-Sociology

• Allison Nobles, University of Minnesota

• Evelyn Gertz, The Ohio State University