( CNN ) -- Rwanda officially closed on Monday its village tribunals overseeing the prosecution of suspects in a 1994 genocide that left 800,000 dead , marking the end of more than a decade of local court prosecutions . Government officials gathered in Kigali over the weekend to formally mark the closure of the courts , known as the gacacas , which closed the last of its cases earlier this month . `` What these courts achieved went beyond anyone 's expectations . They administered justice and united Rwandans at the same time , '' Rwanda President Paul Kagame said in a statement posted on the gacacas website . `` These courts were evidence of our ability to find solutions to challenges that seemed insurmountable . '' The closing of the gacacas came on the heels of the last of the criminal prosecutions related to the genocide by the International Criminal Court , though appeals of ICC findings are expected to go through 2014. according to the ICC . The leaders and masterminds of the genocide were tried by the criminal courts and the ICC , and civilians who contributed to attacks or loss of life directly or indirectly were sent to gacacas . Gacaca courts were introduced in the central African nation after the April 1994 genocide . The victims were mostly from the Tutsi ethnic minority , who were targeted by Hutus over a rivalry that dates to colonial days . Some moderates from the Hutu majority who supported Tutsis were also killed . The gacacas were originally formed to resolve minor disputes among villagers but were reinvented to hand out justice to the perpetrators of the genocide and help fast-track reconciliation efforts in the broken nation . The nation 's justice system and the International Criminal Tribunal set up to try genocide suspects were overwhelmed , and handling all the cases in those courts would have taken hundreds of years , according to the president . Gacacas hearings were held in open fields in neighborhoods where the attacks occurred . There were no lawyers and no judges in robes . A panel of local villagers with no legal experience conducted the proceedings . More than 1.5 million cases were heard by the gacacas , according to estimates . Critics of the gacacas said they did not meet international standards for a fair trial , while others said it exposed victims who testified to revenge attacks . But proponents of the system , which allows a victim to address the tribunal , said it reduced prison congestion and allowed survivors to hear first-hand what happened to their family members who were killed . CNN 's Faith Karimi and Ben Brumfield contributed to this report .
Rwanda established village tribunals , known as the gacacas , to oversee cases . Gacacas courts were established to ease the burden on criminal court prosecutions . The gacacas handled more than 1.5 million cases related to the 1994 genocide . The genocide in Rwanda left more 800,000 dead .