Rebuilding the System of Justice in Afghanistan

A Preliminary Assessment

Bibliographic Data

ID12903293
AuthorsMatteo Tondini (corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume1
Issue3
Pages333-354
Publication date2007-09-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Intervention and Statebuilding (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1750-2977 • E-ISSN: 1750-2985
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17502970701592272
OpenAlexW2022917040
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited24

This preliminary evaluation describes the role of international assistance in the reconstruction of the Afghan judicial system. It focuses on how international policy has both sought to develop and impose externally designed central administrative models and legal codes and also to pragmatically adapt to existing, highly decentralized, practices shaped by the Islamic tradition. The research conducted suggests that international policy in this area has done little to reinforce the central administrative control of the centre. First, regional power structures have been pragmatically accepted, as highlighted in the bypassing of a transitional justice phase, in an attempt to maintain a fragile political stability. Second, the fragmented nature of the Afghan justice system has been reinforced by the lack of coordination between the relevant international actors, which have generated a bundle of projects in the area, each advancing independently. Keywords: Afghanistanreformsjudicial systemSupreme Courtcommon strategy Acknowledgements This article gathers some material and data from a presentation held at the 'The Rule of Law in Peace Operations' congress, organized by the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War, The Hague, May 2006. The author wishes to particularly thank Antonella Deledda (former IJO executive officer in Kabul) for her assistance and also thank Ahmed Tawfiq, Sumit Bisarya and Andrea De Maio (IDLO in Rome) for their collaboration and support, and Michael Pugh and Nasir Akram (University of Bradford, UK) for their valuable comments on a previous draft of this article. Notes 1. Up until the end of 2004, 10 ministries and two independent entities had received PRR status, as well as 8,017 positions among the administrative staff. The initial goal for 2004 was to move 30,000 civil servants to these scales, including 6,000 at the provincial level. At present, all but four ministries have passed over to the new scales, which have involved many salary-related complaints. Concerning the reform of public administration as a whole, the Bonn Agreement provided for the establishment of an independent Civil Service Commission (CSC), a further decree, in June 2003, extended its responsibilities, creating an Independent Administrative Reforms and Civil Service Commission (IARCSC), now in charge of reorganizing the entire public sector. 2. According to the Bonn Agreement (Art.II, 1(i)), the Interim Authority consisted of an Interim Administration (presided over by a chairman), a Special Independent Commission for the Convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga, and a Supreme Court of Afghanistan, plus other courts, as established by the Interim Administration (Art.I, 2). The Interim Authority was composed of a chairman, 5 vice -chairmen and 24 other members, representing the most influent chiefs of the winning factions (Art.III(A), 1). The Interim authority repealed all the laws inconsistent with the 1964 Constitution and the Bonn Agreement by a decree dated 5 January 2002. 3. The International Development Law Organization (IDLO) is an intergovernmental development organization with headquarters in Rome. IDLO experts have been hired by the Italian government to assist the local Italian Justice Project Office (IJO) in work in the field. In general, the IDLO has been responsible for the training of judicial and administrative personnel by means of several projects mostly financed by Italy. A noteworthy activity performed by IDLO has been the initial collection of more than 2,400 Afghan laws, with the aim of restoring the applicable law of the country. A list of programmes undertaken by IDLO in Afghanistan is available at http://www.idlo.org/Afg_interim_training.htm. 4. A UN 'integrated mission' has been generally defined as 'an instrument with which the UN seeks to help countries in the transition from war to lasting peace, or address a similarly complex situation that requires a system-wide UN response, through subsuming various actors and approaches within an overall political-strategic crisis management framework' (Eide et al. Citation2005: 15)

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