UN TRIBUNAL IN ARUSHA APPOINTS FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT

LADY Justice Graciela Gatti Santana from Uruguay is  the new President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism).

She will head the Arusha-based facility for a term of two years, effective 1 July 2022.

Judge Gatti Santana has been a Judge of the Mechanism for over a decade.

She is the first woman appointed to serve as President of the Mechanism.

She will take over from Judge Carmel Agius, of Malta, who has served as Mechanism President since January 2019.

Upon her appointment, Judge Gatti Santana expressed her deepest gratitude to Judge Agius for his exceptional tenure as President of the Mechanism and, in particular, for the remarkable progress the Mechanism has achieved under his leadership.

In that capacity, she has been called to exercise functions for the Mechanism in a variety of judicial matters, including as a Judge of the Appeals Chamber in the Karadžić case and a Judge of the Trial Chamber in the ongoing Kabuga case.

Since 2016, she has also been actively involved as a judicial member of the Mechanism’s Rules Committee.

Together with her service as a Mechanism Judge, Judge Gatti Santana brings to the Presidency extensive experience working as a prominent judge, jurist and professor in Uruguay.

Having joined the Uruguayan judiciary in 1992, she has been assigned to a number of domestic courts, including as a Criminal Judge of the 7th Circuit Court, a Judge for Organised Crime at the 1st Circuit Court and an Appeals Judge to the Civil Court of the 4th Circuit Court.

In February 2016, Judge Gatti Santana was appointed as a Judge of the Court of Appeals in Criminal Matters.

In addition, Judge Gatti Santana was actively engaged in the implementation of the new Uruguayan Code of Criminal Procedure from 2016 to 2017 and, since March 2021, has been the President of the Association of Magistrates of Uruguay.

She has also worked before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and teaches at the University of Montevideo, the University of Empresa and the Uruguayan judiciary school.

Judge Carmel Agius announced recently that he was stepping down as the President of the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism).

He is exiting at a time the Arusha-based legal facility.has made some progress by apprehending some key suspects of the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

Judge Agius from Malta who was appointed to the President of International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism) in January 2019.

"I am stepping down with a sense of pride in its (Mechanism)  progress, which had been a joint achievement", he said as he conferred the UN boss.

He said despite stepping down as the President of the Mechanism, he continues to be available to serve as a Judge of the same.

Among the key alleged masterminds of the Rwanda genocide apprehended was Felicien Kabuga who was traced at a seclusive Paris suburb after being on run for 25 years.

Mr. Kabuga, who had a $ 5 million bounty on his head for his  role in the horrific massacre in Rwanda, was the alleged financier of the genocide.