Afghanistan’s laws and legal institutions under the Taliban

The Taliban took over the Afghan capital Kabul in August 2021 and regained control of the entire country.The first time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan (1996Afghanistan ( -2001)), they were virtually stepping into an absence of a legal and political order.However, this time the Taliban have taken over a two-decade-old political and legal order, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.What does the Taliban takeover mean for the country's laws and legal institutions?What does it mean for the legal trajectory of Afghanistan?Building on the ruins that the years of civil war and Taliban rule had left behind, the Republic was founded on a constitution (2004) that, by many standards, could be considered the most progressive constitution in the region.Within this progressive constitutional framework, two elected presidents and four elected parliaments enacted numerous laws.The Supreme Court, the country's top court, was reestablished as the head of a formally independent judiciary.The Attorney General's office was reestablished to formally introduce an element of due process in the criminal justice system.Law and political science faculties and Shari'ah faculties, two schools that would supply the justice sector personnel, started graduating people who would staff the growing justice sector.The surplus of law and Shari'ah graduates, the flow of aid to the formal justice sector, and the increase in demand (and need) for formal legal services led to the emergence of a nascent private legal market where a formally independent bar association licensed and regulated the private defence attorneys

Political science · Law · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

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