Government Expands Community Courts

Expanding an experimental program, Rwanda set up dozens of community courts to try suspects in the country’s 1994 genocide. People who witnessed killings will judge their peers, often ex-neighbors and friends.

Judicial officials said tens of thousands of “people’s judges” were gathering with inhabitants in 106 towns to prepare for the start of the trials in two weeks.

They will draw up lists of people who were slaughtered and people from those areas who are in prison on suspicion of killing. They will also discuss codes of conduct to govern proceedings.