A report by the Senatorial Committee on Governance and Political Affairs has revealed that months to the end of their mandate, 25 members of community mediation committees locally known as Abunzi have so far been convicted of corruption related crimes.
Mediation committees, commonly known as 'Abunzi', are a hybrid of conventional justice system and Rwanda's traditional conflict resolution mechanism.
Statistics from the Ministry of Justice indicate that 97.8 per cent of the over 48,000 claims taken to community mediators, were solved in the 2018-19 financial year, a slight improvement from the previous year's 97.3 per cent.
Last year, the Ministry of Justice launched nationwide consultations to gather views to inform an ongoing effort to devise a robust national policy on dispute resolution.
Speaking earlier, Anastase Nabahire, the Coordinator of Justice, Reconciliation, Law and Order Sector Strategy (JRLOS) at the ministry, said the new policy will contain the best elements extracted from the various dispute resolution mechanisms that have been used in Rwanda.
