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Rwanda: Boost for access to justice as majority age lowered to 18

Friday September 30 2016
court

A Rwandan court in session. Eighteen-year-old Rwandans can now file a lawsuit. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA

Eighteen-year-old Rwandans can now file a lawsuit.

The newly passed persons and family law has lowered the majority age to 18 from the initial age of 21, addressing what child rights groups had termed a “barrier to accessing justice” in the country.

“A person having attained that age, is fully qualified for all acts involving civil life except marriage that was kept at 21,” said Minister of Justice Johnston Busingye.

Rights groups have welcomed the development, saying it will ease universal access to justice.

“This is a relief for young adults who could not get legal redress as their property is damaged or misappropriated waiting to be 21 years old,” said Elie Nizeyimana, a lawyer with Haguruka, a local NGO that defends women and children’s rights.

Before the new law, children below the age of 21 were forced to act through their parents, guardians or representatives.

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“In practical terms this may not be a problem where parents, guardians and children agree, but where they don’t, children were unable to access the courts regardless of the seriousness of their complaint or their own ability to make that case,” said Leo Ratledge, legal co-ordinator at the London-based Child Rights International Network (CRIN).

A Kigali-based lawyer, François Xavier Habakurama says that representation guardianship and legal tutorship have themselves resulted in many legal suits, with children contesting mismanagement and mishandling of their property before they attain majority age.

The new law emphasises that minors having attained the age of 16 may alone enter into an agreement relating to their employment, exercise of their art or occupation or any other activity useful to them.

CRIN still raises concern that a fixed simple age limit is not a good idea, since people under 18 years will still be constrained to look for a third party to sue on their behalf regardless of whether they have the capacity to make a complaint themselves.

“To be child-friendly, legal systems need to recognise that simple age limits don’t address this kind of variation among children,” said Ratledge.

However, with the new law, in case of justifiable grounds, a minor having attained the age of sixteen may be emancipated by a civil registrar.

Emancipation

“An emancipated minor is capable of all acts of civil life unless otherwise provided for by the law,” the new law provides.

Emancipation was provided in the repealed law but this could only be done by the justice minister and only on people who have attained the age of 18.

But rights groups want more, saying that access to justice for children involves much more than simple legal capacity.

“If children are to be able to challenge violations of their rights through the courts, they also need access to legal aid and legal assistance; rules of evidence need to be tailored to enable children to testify in a child-friendly way and there need to be mechanisms to deal with conflicts of interests where family members are representing their children’s interests in court,” Ratledge said.