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State and Non-State Justice Systems in Afghanistan: the Need for Synergy

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State and Non-State Justice Systems in Afghanistan: the Need for Synergy WARDAK_FINAL.DOC (DO NOT DELETE) 10/20/2011 3:13 PM STATE AND NON-STATE JUSTICE SYSTEMS IN AFGHANISTAN: THE NEED FOR SYNERGY ALI WARDAK* 1. INTRODUCTION The long Afghan conflict has resulted in an extensive destruction of Afghanistan‘s state justice institutions that existed prior to the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (―USSR‖) invasion of the country in December 1979. The destruction has not only included extensive damage to buildings, office furniture, official records, legal resources, and essential office equipment, but also the death, imprisonment, and migration of hundreds of professional justice officials, including qualified judges, prosecutors, police officers, and prison wardens.1 Following the collapse of the Taliban regime, the Bonn Agreement of December 2001 authorized formation of the Afghanistan Judicial Commission.2 The Bonn Agreement tasked the Commission—with help from the United Nations and other international actors—to ―rebuild the [Afghan] domestic justice system in accordance with Islamic principles, international standards, the rule of law and * Dr. Ali Wardak is a Reader (Associate Professor) in criminology at the University of Glamorgan, United Kingdom, and Vice President of the South Asian Society of Criminology and Victimology. I can be reached by email at [email protected]. I extend my sincere thanks to John Braitwaite, Amy Feinman, and the staffs of the Journal of International Law and the Journal of Law and Social Change at the University of Pennsylvania for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of the Article. My heartfelt thanks go to my wife, and to our children—Omar, Zohra, and Hossai—for their affectionate support while working on this Article. An earlier version of this Article was presented by the author at ―The Afghanisation Strategy,‖ a seminar organized by Casa Asia in Barcelona, Spain on June 15, 2009. 1 Ali Wardak, Building a Post-War Justice System in Afghanistan, 41 J. CRIME L. & SOC. CHANGE 319, 328 (2004). 2 See Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of Permanent Government Institutions, S.C. Res. 1383, U.N. SCOR, 4434th mtg., U.N. Doc. S/2001/1154 (Dec. 5, 2001), available at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3f48f4754.html [hereinafter Bonn Agreement]. 1305 WARDAK_FINAL.DOC (DO NOT DELETE) 10/20/2011 3:13 PM 1306 U. Pa. J. Int’l L. [Vol. 32:5 Afghan legal traditions.‖3 The Commission, however, which lacked both vision and competence, had difficulty drawing up a roadmap for rebuilding the post-Taliban justice system and working collaboratively with permanent Afghan justice institutions.4 This situation has had important negative implications for the process of rebuilding a post-Taliban justice system in Afghanistan over the past ten years. Afghanistan‘s post-Taliban administrations, supported by, among others, the United Nations, Italy, the United States, Germany, and Canada, embarked on the complex task of rebuilding Afghanistan‘s rule of law and justice institutions. The various national and international efforts in this process are guided by several strategies, which mainly include the 2008 Afghanistan National Development Strategy, the National Justice Sector Strategy, National Justice Program, and the 2010 Afghanistan National Development Strategy Prioritization and Implementation Plan.5 While overlapping, these strategies provide guidance to the Afghan government‘s rule of law and justice implementation program, as well a framework for international donor support.6 Key objectives of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy that were to be accomplished by the end of 2010 included completion of the basic legal framework (including civil, criminal, and commercial law), rehabilitation of the physical infrastructure of justice institutions, establishment of fully functional justice institutions throughout Afghanistan, review and reform of oversight of corruption-related procedures, addressing lack of due process and miscarriages of justice, and strengthening the professionalism, credibility, and integrity of the justice system personnel.7 3 Id. at 4. 4 See U.N. Secretary-General, The Situation in Afghanistan and Its Implications for International Peace and Security: Rep. of the Secretary-General, delivered to the Security Council, U.N. Doc. S/2003/1212 (Dec. 30, 2003); see also Wardak, supra note 1 (discussing the difficulties of working with Afghan institutions to establish a cohesive justice system). 5 See generally LIANA SUN WYLER & KENNETH KATZMAN, CONG. RESEARCH SERV., R41484, AFGHANISTAN: U.S. RULE OF LAW AND JUSTICE SECTOR ASSISTANCE (2010) (explaining generally the international reform efforts in Afghanistan). 6 Id. at 17. 7 INT‘L MONETARY FUND, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF AFG.: AFGHANISTAN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY: FIRST ANNUAL REPORT 1387 (2008/2009), MAKING A DIFFERENCE: TRANSITION FROM PLANNING TO PRACTICE 10 (2009), available at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2009/cr09319.pdf [hereinafter AFGHANISTAN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY]. WARDAK_FINAL.DOC (DO NOT DELETE) 10/20/2011 3:13 PM 2011] JUSTICE SYSTEMS IN AFGHANISTAN 1307 This Article argues that a post-Taliban justice system, built on a meaningful synergy between state and non-state justice institutions, has a very strong potential for providing accessible, effective, cost-effective and transparent justice to all sections of the Afghan society. This Article is divided into three main sections. Section 2 examines the achievements as well as the problems that have surfaced throughout the process of rebuilding Afghanistan‘s state justice institutions over the past ten years. Section 3 discusses non-state justice institutions, focusing on jirga and shura. After examining positive aspects of jirga and shura, the negative aspects of these non-state institutions of local dispute settlement are highlighted. In Section 4, this Article focuses on the ―hybrid model of Afghan justice,‖ which was proposed by the 2007 Afghanistan Human Development Report.8 The ―hybrid model‖ recommends the creation of meaningful institutional links between state and non- state justice systems in Afghanistan. The Article concludes that a meaningful synergy between state and non-state justice institutions has a strong potential to provide justice to all sections of Afghan society and to become a channel of communication among ordinary citizens and their state in post-Taliban Afghanistan. 2. STATE JUSTICE SYSTEM Although it is difficult to draw a clear dividing line between state and non-state justice systems in Afghanistan, the former generally refers to positive law that functions through legal codes and state institutions, such as the courts, prosecutors, police, the prison service, and the bar of law. Thus, in the context of Afghanistan, key state justice and judicial institutions include the Supreme Court (stara mahkama), the Attorney General‘s Office (loy saranwali), the police (sarandoi), the Ministry of Justice (wezarate-e- adelia), and the prison service. Although these institutions are supposed to be closely interconnected, in reality there exists little organic chain-like interaction among them, and therefore, they hardly operate as a ―system.‖9 Nevertheless, the totality of these 8 CTR. FOR POLICY & HUMAN DEV., AFGHANISTAN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT, BRIDGING MODERNITY AND TRADITION: RULE OF LAW AND THE SEARCH FOR JUSTICE 4 (2007), available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/nationalreports/ asiathepacific/afghanistan/nhdr2007.pdf [hereinafter AFGHANISTAN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT]. 9 See Ali Wardak, Rule of Law in Afghanistan: An Overview, in 4 PETERSBERG PAPERS ON AFGHANISTAN AND THE REGION 47 (Wolfgang Danspeckgruber ed., 2009) (explaining the development of Afghan political and judicial institutions). See WARDAK_FINAL.DOC (DO NOT DELETE) 10/20/2011 3:13 PM 1308 U. Pa. J. Int’l L. [Vol. 32:5 justice institutions has historically been referred to as a nezam-e- adlee wa qazaiee (justice and judicial order/system), which was central to the maintenance of social and political order in pre-war Afghanistan. While progress in rebuilding the Afghan state justice system during the past ten years has been slow and patchy, it has nevertheless been noticeable: significant work has been done on legislation; several hundred judges, prosecutors, and prison wardens, and thousands of police personnel have been trained; some justice institutions have been refurbished; and several new ones have been built from scratch.10 Progress has also been made with regard to building administrative capacity within the existing justice institutions and the publication and distribution of a large body of law to legal professionals.11 Progress in rebuilding Afghanistan‘s state justice system has included the establishment of the Independent Bar Association of Afghanistan, legal aid departments in Kabul and in three provinces, the Independent National Legal Training Centre (―INLTC‖) in Kabul, and a committee for the simplification of judicial bureaucracy.12 Moreover, there has been an agreement between the Attorney General and Ministry of Interior on the development and implementation of measures to improve prosecution processes, and the introduction of common telephone numbers for use by the public to register complaints.13 However despite the above-mentioned achievements, the post- Taliban state justice system is far from delivering justice to the Afghan people and faces serious problems. The nature and severity of these problems appear to have heavily overshadowed what has been achieved
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