Joseph Kavaruganda (8 May 1935 – 7 April 1994) was a Rwandan jurist who served as president of Rwanda's Constitutional Court. He was killed at the beginning of the Rwandan genocide.
Early life
Joseph Kavaruganda was born on 8 May 1935 in Tare, Ruanda-Urundi. He attended primary school in Tare, and then attended the Kigali Junior Seminary before studying law in Belgium, earning his Doctor of Philosophy in 1966. He returned to Rwanda in 1967 and took up work as a president of Caisse d'Épargne, a credit and savings institution.
Legal career
In 1974, Kavaruganda was appointed Prosecutor General of Rwanda.
To assist with implementation of the Arusha Accords, the United Nations established the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda and dispatched an international peacekeeping force to the country. In early February 1994 members of the Interahamwe, a Hutu extremist militia, stoned Kavaruganda's car. The following day they stormed the Constitutional Court building, but Kavaruganda and his colleagues escaped through his office window. The remaining soldiers then harassed the family and looted their house before leaving. One of the Hutu-loyalist ministers evacuated during the night, Casimir Bizimungu, returned to the neighborhood soon thereafter to gather some things from his home. Annonciata begged him to take herself, her children, and a neighbor to the Canadian embassy, and he reluctantly did so. They were granted refuge there during the genocide.