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Scholar Commons > Open Access Journals > GSP > Vol. 14 (2020) > Iss. 2 (2020)

 

Abstract

The Gacaca courts have been the subject of much academic work. Yet, few studies have examined the elected individuals who presided over Gacaca court trials, reflecting a broader paucity of research on local practitioners of transitional justice. Accordingly, this study asks two questions: (1) How did the Gacaca court judges, known as Inyangamugayo, perceive their duties to fight impunity and facilitate reconciliation? And (2) What challenges did the Inyangamugayo face as they sought to implement these duties? To address these questions, we interviewed 135 former Inyangamugayo. Our interviews shed light on the Inyangamugayo’s understandings of punishment and accountability, as well as on their perceptions of reconciliation at personal and societal levels. The interviews also illuminate the problems the Inyangamugayo faced while presiding over trials. Taken together, these findings contribute to scholarship on transitional justice pursuits by highlighting the perceptions and experiences of the individuals who implement transitional justice mechanisms.

Acknowledgements

This article was made possible thanks to the generosity of Aegis Trust programme in Research, Policy and Higher Education as well as DfID and SIDA as project funders. Rwanda’s Inyangamugayo: Perspectives from Practitioners in the Gacaca Transitional Justice Mechanism* Jean-Damascène GASANABO, 1 Donatien NIKUZE, 2 Hollie NYSETH BREHM, 3 Hannah PARKS, 4 1&2 Research and Documentation Center of Genocide, Rwandan National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), 3 Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University 4 Northeastern University *Direct correspondence to Jean-Damascène Gasanabo, Research and Documentation Center of Genocide, Rwandan National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), P.O. Box 7035 KIGALI, RWANDA, (email: jd.gasanabo@cnlg.gov.rw)

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.14.2.1642

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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