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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 06/04
Afghanistan: Judicial Reform and Transitional Justice
January 28, 2003
Abstract
Afghanistan's legal system has collapsed. Never strong to begin with, it has been nearly destroyed by 23 years of conflict and misrule. There are few trained lawyers, little physical infrastructure and no complete record of the country's laws. Under successive regimes, laws have been administered for mostly political ends with few protections of the rights of individuals to a fair trial. Although the country has signed up to most international agreements on human rights, abuses have been widespread, and military commanders have enjoyed impunity.
The challenges in remedying the situation are enormous. No justice system can thrive in a state of insecurity and corruption since judges and prosecutors will be intimidated or bribed. There are deep divisions between those who favour a very conservative interpretation of Islamic law and those who want to revive the more progressive ideas in the 1964 Constitution. The loss of trained staff has been such that it will take a generation at least to rebuild a system that even before the conflict only really functioned in the main cities and towns.
