A/HRC/31/8 sustain 66 per cent of the national budget. Extreme poverty had been nearly eradicated and poverty had also been substantially reduced. 8. The majority of Rwandans had some form of health insurance. Twelve years of free basic education was guaranteed for all children. Rwanda had the highest representation of women in Parliament in the world. 9. Since the brutal murder of over 1 million people 21 years ago, the Government had worked deliberately to mend the fabric of society and create a national identity. Today, the people were proud Rwandans, focused on entrenching their “Rwandan-ness” over narrow and artificial ethnic divisions. The Government had invested in creating the legal and institutional structures to support this new dispensation. 10. Since 2011, key institutions for the protection of human rights had been created, such as the National Commission for Children, the National Council of Persons with Disabilities and the Rwanda Governance Board, which was responsible for promoting good governance and creating an enabling environment for civil society organizations and the media. 11. The Constitution underscored the central role of human rights and dedicated 41 articles to the guarantee of fundamental human freedoms, including all of the human rights stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Various enabling laws had been developed over the past 21 years. In particular, the landscape with regard to the guarantee of freedom of expression, access to information, and freedom of association and assembly had perhaps experienced the most dynamic changes during the past four and a half years. 12. The delegation elaborated on key achievements in the implementation of the recommendations from the previous review and responded to advance questions. On the issues of access to justice and rule of law, the delegation stated that the Ministry of Justice was now decentralized. All 30 districts had access to justice officers. The main ethos of the justice system was the need to promote reconciliation and arbitration over conflict, and to prevent an overdependence on the formal justice system. It had been demonstrated that the model worked, with the remarkable success of the gacaca courts. Mediation committees, known locally as “Abunzi”, had been established to resolve disputes arising in communities, thereby reducing the need to approach the formal justice system. 13. The delegation stated that the judiciary was under the High Council of the Judiciary, a constitutional body presided over by the Chief Justice. The judiciary also enjoyed administrative and financial autonomy. Significant resources had been invested in the development of the judiciary in relation to the quality and impartiality of the judgements issued and improvements in the infrastructure of the courts. 14. With regard to allegations of disappearance, investigations had shown that, in the cases of many individuals, relevant information had not been shared with the police or any other Government agency that might have been able to effectively respond. Rwanda was better equipped to investigate and verify claims through electronic national identification systems. Names were also checked in the database of the prisons system. Some individuals reported missing had been found to be serving prison sentences. Of the 175 alleged disappearances that had been brought to the Government’s attention by the diplomatic corps, 158 cases had never been reported to the police, the names of 89 persons could not be matched to the national identification database and several others had been found in prison serving lawfully imposed sentences. 15. In relation to the conditions of detention facilities, the Rwanda Correctional Services had recently been recognized by the International Corrections and Prisons Association for 4

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