Robert Mbaraga

IN SUMMARY Rwanda government remains under pressure to increase the number of medical doctors in the country to meet the desired international health staffing standards, despite recent increment in enrolment. This week the ministry of health deployed 94 junior medical officers who have been doing their internship since last year, and another 74 were commissioned to start their one-year professional internship.

A symposium held in Kigali last week tasked the government with driving a review of laws and policies to reduce the number of people sent to prison. “There is a need for legislative reforms, to introduce probation in our laws and widen our diversion schemes as well as increase use of fines,” said Frank Mugisha, programme manager in the Legal Aid Forum, a civil society network of legal aid providers.

Rwanda’s judiciary will have to go back to the drawing board should the president assent to the Bill that takes back power of mediation committees locally known as Abunzi. Parliament passed the bill last week and it might not take long to become a law given the speed and special treatment it was given. “You realise that a law is bad and hard to implement only when you have stared implementing it,” said Frank Mugabo, the director of Access to Justice Co-ordination Unit in the Ministry of Justice.