Reparation of Harms Caused by Arbitrary Detention of the Acquitted Accused in Rwandan Law

Despite its exceptional nature, detention is not without its detrimental effects on the person concerned, insofar as the law enforcement agency acts through its prerogatives of public authority by depriving him or her of one of the fundamental rights of the individual, namely the freedom of movement. The harm is all the greater when the person concerned by the measure is sentenced before conviction. In choosing this topic, we were not interested in administrative arrests which take place outside the framework of criminal proceedings to prevent or combat public order disturbances, nor in pre-trial detentions directed against a category of persons who show a certain mental defiance (debility, serious mental imbalance or insanity). Rather, our ambition was to analyse the problem of compensation for damages caused by the pre-trial detention of an acquitted defendant in Rwandan positive law, as well as to discuss mechanisms for improving civil liability resulting from such detention. In these developments, we will deal with the deprivation of liberty of a person during the course of criminal proceedings, whether at the investigation stage or at the trial stage.