Senior Human Rights Watch adviser Alison Des Forges said the lack of legal representation was a serious concern. "The authorities' view is that this is a quasi-customary kind of procedure, and there never used to be lawyers, so there's no need for lawyers now. The problem with that is that little is the same except for the name. In this system, there is considerable weight given to the official side. The office of the prosecutor provides considerable assistance to the bench judges in terms of making its determination, so you no longer have a level playing field." There may, however, be no alternative to the Gacaca trials, she added. "Obviously the problem of delivering justice after the genocide is an overwhelming problem. Gacaca may not be ideal but there is at this point no alternative... The official explanation I think is that people did not speak openly until the Gacaca process and now many more accusations are surfacing. Also, the concession program, which requires the naming of all those who participated along with the accused return for a lighter sentence, has led to a multiplication of names. "How many of these are well-founded, what is the credibility of the evidence, these are very serious concerns."