Legal aid and access to justice in post-genocide Rwanda

Abstract

This study examines the legal framework for the provision of legal aid, as well as the levels of people’s awareness of the available legal aid services and institutions; the forms of legal aid commonly accessed and whether they translate into access to justice and the factors that impede access to legal aid in Rwanda. The study was inspired by the fact that legal aid played a central role in the dispensation of justice to the victims of the 1994 genocide, in which approximately one million people were killed over one hundred days.1 However, the victims and the poor are still facing awareness and access challenges relating to the availability of legal aid services.