Tuesday 28^th May 2024, a group of prosecutors and advocates completed a two-day training session on the Introduction to Plea Bargaining, organized by the Institute of Legal Practice and Development in collaboration with Initiatives for Peace and Human Rights (i-Peace). This training introduced participants to a new criminal justice policy that emphasizes the effectiveness of plea bargaining in resolving criminal cases, including cross-border offenses.

The plea-bargaining procedure was reintroduced in Rwanda by the Criminal Procedure Code of 2019. It is a pre-trial negotiation in which the accused accepts to plead guilty in exchange of certain advantages. By entering a plea-bargaining agreement, the suspect gets the advantage of having some charges dropped or he/she obtains the Prosecutor’s commitment to pray the court for a lenient sentence. It follows that the procedure might be related to charge bargain, sentence bargain or both.

In addition to this, subject to the peculiarities of each case, the suspect might be given the benefit of not being subjected to preventive detention. The bargain may also consider the conditions of probation, restitution to the victim, etc. The procedure helps the accused to save a lot of money that he would spend in hiring advocates. It saves money to the Government as well, especially for those indigent accused and whose lawyer’s fees are supported by the Legal Aid Program.

These advantages are conceded in exchange of valuable information that the prosecution would hardly obtain or that would be extremely expensive to obtain. The information might be related to the elements and scope of the offence, its modus operandi or the number and/ or identity of co-authors or accomplices.

The agreement between the suspect and the prosecutor sets up an operational framework for the trial judge. A well-articulated plea-bargaining agreement would help expediate the criminal process. However, the court has the discretion of not enforcing the agreement if the court finds out that the agreement rather obstructs the good administration of justice.

Dr. Tite Niyibizi, a National Prosecutor and the trainer, highlighted the benefits of plea bargaining as previously noted by the Chief Justice during the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Pepperdine for the Plea-Bargaining Pilot Project on October 11, 2023. He recalled that this procedure helps reducing the waiting time for the accused, increasing the relationship between the offender and the victim, reducing court case backlogs, lowering the prison population, shortening remand periods, and aiding in the investigation process.

According to the Inspectorate of Courts in the Supreme Court, as of today 9,630 criminal cases have been concluded since 11 October 2022. This means that there are nearly 506 cases concluded via the plea-bargaining procedure each month.  Although, these results are commendable, there is a need to maintain the momentum and increase the use of plea-bargaining procedure as a criminal diversion mechanism.  In jurisdictions that effectively apply the plea-bargaining procedure such as the United States, it absorbs 90 per cent of felony cases. In the United Kingdom, only 6 per cent of prosecutions in the magistrates’ courts (they can be compared to our Primary Tribunals) go to trial and 7 per cent in the Crown Court (they can be compared to our Intermediate Courts) go to trial.

Plea bargaining can be initiated at any stage of the proceedings for any criminal case where the court has not yet reached a decision. Prosecutors are encouraged to initiate plea bargaining negotiations at the earliest appropriate opportunity.