Sarkin, JeremyOsega, Julius2023-05-162024-04-022023-05-162024-04-022001https://hdl.handle.net/10566/10298Magister Legum - LLMln countries undergoing a shift from a repression to democracy, the question of transitional justice presents, in a very conspicuous manner, the first test for the establishment of a real democracy with the rule of law. Rwanda too is caught up in this web and the way forward is being sought. After ousting a regime that organized genocidal killings of at least a million people, if the new government were to undertake prosecution of every person who participated in this heinous butcher, more than 120,000 Rwandan citizens could be placed in the dock - a situation that would be wholly unmanageable and extremely destabilizing of the transition. While each country's experience is not only dramatic but unique, and however relative the mechanisms of accountability and their outcomes may be, that in itself does not and cannot exclude the application of existing international norms and standards which represent the threshold of international legality lt is therefore important that Rwanda should adopt unifying themes common to nations moving from despotism to democracy and lessons that each nation might bring to the others.enTransitional justiceDemocracyRwandaGenocideRwandan citizensUniversity of the Western Cape