The Rwandan Judiciary achieved a remarkable milestone in the 2024-2025 judicial year, with over 15,000 cases resolved without going to court through mediation and plea bargaining.
This was announced by the President of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary and Chief Justice, Domitille Mukantaganzwa, on Monday during the opening ceremony of the 2025-2026 Judicial Year.
She said that the report for the 2024-2025 judicial year shows that courts received 106,254 new cases.
She said: “in addition to 76,273 cases carried over from the 2023-2024 year, bringing the total number of cases to be handled to 182,527.”
She added: “Of these, courts delivered judgments in 109,192 cases, including 92,880 at the primary level (85%) and 16,312 involving pretrial detention and provisional release (15%).”
Chief Justice Mukantaganzwa said the most encouraging achievement was the significant progress made in resolving cases without taking them to court.
She said “In this context, 3,166 civil, commercial, labor, and administrative cases were resolved through mediation. Meanwhile, 11,846 criminal cases were resolved through plea bargaining between the prosecution and the accused,”
Through both approaches, a total of 15,012 cases were resolved. When combined with cases adjudicated at the primary and provisional detention levels, the total number of cases handled reached 124,204.
Despite this progress, 58,323 cases remained unresolved, including 26,862 pending cases. Chief Justice Mukantaganzwa explained that this backlog is partly due to a low public understanding of alternative dispute resolution and the tendency of some people to continue appealing court decisions.
She assured that in the new judicial year, the Judiciary will continue to encourage citizens to use alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to settle disputes.
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