Rwanda après le génocide des Tutsi : les juridictions « Gacaca », une justice pédagogique, pénale et restauratrice

The Tutsis genocide in 1994 in Rwanda resulted in a radical fracture of social cohesion and immeasurable trauma in the Rwandan society. To remedy this, the Rwandan Government had to invent an exceptional model of justice, named the “Gacaca” courts, inspired by the Rwandan tradition, which are both restorative, educational and criminal. From the legal point of view, indeed, the “Gacaca” system is designed as a real criminal court for retributive purpose, given that the acts that are considered in them are offences provided for and punishable under the penal code. But through this article, we will see that beyond its criminal vocation, this system is an instrument of justice which has the primordial role of educating and assisting Rwandan citizens to obtain some form of human and civic well-being after an event so dramatic that it plunged them into immeasurable suffering and disastrous disagreements. It is this “exceptional character” and this transversality that interest our analysis. Our concern here is not to make a critique of this system, it will be rather to highlight the role that this judicial system has played in the reconstruction of the values of living together (social cohesion), in bringing Rwandan citizens to live with one another and not against one another.