Farid Hamidi, former Attorney General of Afghanistan, has stated that the Taliban administration has effectively destroyed the concept of the legal system by eliminating the separation of powers within judicial and legal institutions. He explains that under the current structure, Taliban courts are simultaneously responsible for investigating criminal cases and issuing verdicts, with all authority concentrated in a single judge.<\/p>\n
In an article published on Wednesday (May 26) in Just Security, Hamidi wrote that Afghanistan’s legal system had been built over two decades based on the constitution, with a three-tier court structure, an independent prosecution office, and an independent bar association. According to him, under that system, prosecutors prepared the cases, judges issued rulings, and defense lawyers provided representation and legal advice, ensuring processes for reconsideration and evidence review.<\/p>\n
He emphasized, “Building this system took 20 years, but its destruction took just 11 days.” Hamidi believes the Taliban administration has not created an alternative legal system but instead removed the fundamental separation of duties and structural safeguards.<\/p>\n
The former Attorney General added that during his tenure starting in 2016, there were 6,000 prosecutors across the country, of whom three percent were women. With international support, the proportion of women in the prosecution service increased to 23 percent by 2021.<\/p>\n
Hamidi said that following the Taliban\u2019s return to power, all female prosecutors were dismissed and now face not only unemployment but also threats. He also noted that the number of women imprisoned under the Taliban administration has risen by 435 percent, reaching 1,825 individuals.<\/p>\n
He further stated that since the Taliban\u2019s takeover, at least 57 prosecutors or members of their families have been killed. Additionally, 3,800 prosecutors remain in hiding within the country, grappling with unemployment and severe economic hardships.<\/p>\n
Hamidi also highlighted that during his leadership, 250 female prosecutors received training with the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and were appointed to central and provincial prosecution offices. According to him, these women are now threatened due to their association with an American institution, but the United States has not issued them special immigration visas, arguing that they were not direct employees of any American entity.<\/p>\n
After retaking control of Afghanistan, the Taliban administration abolished the constitution and other republican-era laws. Over nearly five years, it has enforced new decrees and orders based on what it defines as Islamic Sharia law in various sectors. Critics argue these actions have completely transformed the country’s previous judicial and legal structures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Afghan Attorney General says Taliban eliminated legal separation of powers, dismissed female prosecutors, and drastically changed the justice system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}