IDLO program helps Afghan professionals deliver justice
IDLO has been working in Afghanistan since 2002 to strengthen access to justice, uphold human rights, expand legal capacity and promote local ownership.
Afghanistan emerged from Taliban rule in 2001 as an institutional wasteland. The justice deficit was acute, making the country a test case for law-based nation-building. Ever since, IDLO has been working with the Afghan government to drive judicial reform and foster the rule of law. And as Afghanistan takes charge of its own future, IDLO has been stepping up efforts to expand legal capacity and promote human rights. Advancing legal protection for women and combating gender violence have been among our priorities. IDLO has helped create an infrastructure of legal aid to victims, while supporting the prosecution of crimes against women and girls.
But Afghanistan remains a brittle post-conflict society. We have trained Afghan public defenders, empowered the poor to seek legal aid, and helped build legal resources in most of the country’s provinces. We have developed legal textbooks, reconstituted an entire pre-war body of lost law, and contributed to the establishment of a law library at the University of Kabul. Thousands of Afghan legal professionals – judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, MPs, civil servants and academics – are benefiting from this knowledge transfer.
Afghanistan has been an IDLO member party since November 2012.
IDLO has been working in Afghanistan since 2002 to strengthen access to justice, uphold human rights, expand legal capacity and promote local ownership.
The revised Afghan Penal Code entered into force in February 2018. This called for an urgent need to build the capacity of justice professionals to handle cases in compliance with the revised Code. In response, the Supreme Court, Attorney General’s Office and Ministry of Justice turned to their nascent professional training departments. However, the maturity, capacity and resources of the departments vary, and extra support is required to enable them to deliver the task effectively.
An effective, accountable and accessible justice system, based on the rule of law, is essential for security, economic development and the protection of fundamental rights in Afghanistan. Initiated in 2013, IDLO’s Justice Training Transition Program (JTTP) was one of the largest international training programs serving the Afghan criminal justice sector.
As part of IDLO’s continuous commitment to accountability and results-based management, IDLO is pleased to share this Final Evaluation Brief (summarised evaluation report): “Supporting Access to Justice in Afghanistan (SAJA)”. The evaluation has been conducted by independent evaluation experts, supervised by <
H.E. Farid Hamidi is the Attorney General of Afghanistan. In November 2016, he spoke to IDLO as a special guest at the Assembly of Parties.
I was appointed as the Attorney General of Afghanistan in April of this year, 2016. Building the judicial capacity of Afghanistan is a dire need for implementation of justice and rule of law, as well as for ensuring human rights.
To strengthen public outreach in Afghanistan and increase legal awareness throughout the country, the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association (AIBA) launched its Communications Strategy 2017 – 2020, developed with IDLO technical support, on Monday, 6 November in Kabul.
IDLO works to empower rural women by enhancing legal knowledge and rights awareness, giving them tools to promote justice in their local communities, and promoting their professional participation in the justice sector. Many women living in rural communities are excluded from decision-making processes and unable to access formal justice structures.
As part of its efforts to build the capacity of Afghanistan’s justice sector through the Justice Training Transition Program (JTTP), IDLO has organized an exposure visit for Afghan justice professionals to Italian institutions.