by Alberto Galvi –
In Afghanistan, the Taliban wield unprecedented power over the fate of defendants and the resolution of civil disputes. The Taliban dismantled Afghanistan’s attorney general’s office in 2021, and persecuted former prosecutors who previously brought criminal cases against thousands of Taliban insurgents. Prisoners freed by the Taliban attempted to retaliate against prosecutors and judges, resulting in the killing of more than a dozen former judges.
Most cases are resolved quickly, often receiving a verdict at the first appearance in court. The plaintiffs and defendants make brief presentations and a sentence is issued. Taliban judges have resolved more than 200,000 cases in the past two years, including thousands that were backlogged in the previous government’s judiciary.
The United Nations and human rights bodies have denounced the Taliban’s criminal justice system as brutally harsh. While the Taliban defend public corporal punishment as compliant with Islamic law, the UN considers it inhumane and a violation of international conventions against torture.
The Taliban have suspended Afghanistan’s constitution which guarantees the political and administrative independence of the judiciary. Furthermore, there is no written document establishing the appointment of judges, their authorities and judicial responsibility. The absence of written laws has left judicial verdicts open to different interpretations of general Islamic norms.
This legal ambiguity has led to serious human rights violations, such as the indefinite detention and torture of individuals without specific charges or the right to a court hearing. Called the only gender apartheid regime in the world, women are barred from working even in the judiciary and there are no female judges to deal with disputes between female plaintiffs and defendants.
For decades the Taliban fought the previous Afghan government, accusing it of being a puppet regime serving foreign interests. the Taliban say they have given Afghanistan a better justice system than the one built by broad international support.