Producing expertise in a transitional justice setting: Judges at rwanda’s gacaca courts

Abstract

In the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, the Government of Rwanda created courts to hold hundreds of thousands of suspected genocidaires accountable. Faced with an unprecedented volume of cases, each community elected lay judges known as inyangamugayo to preside over the court proceedings. With no prior legal training, these individuals held trials for a decade, levying sentences ranging from minor fines to life in prison. This article draws from forty-six interviews with former inyangamugayo to make two primary contributions. First, we examine how professional boundaries shifted during a period of upheaval such that laypeople performed tasks typically undertaken by professionals. Second, we highlight the centrality of social capital—and, more specifically, reputations—in the inyangamugayo’s election and tasks. In doing so, we illustrate how the inyangamugayo leveraged their reputations to secure the cooperation of fellow community members in adjudicating crimes of genocide.