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Afghan Women Judges Pursue Legal Training in United States

By Carolee Walker
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Trust in the Afghan legal system is weak, according to a female Afghan judge speaking at a June 22 State Department roundtable discussion on women in Afghanistan’s justice system.

“People who have been in place in the legal system in Afghanistan need to get trained so they can at least learn about the legal system,” the judge said. “Otherwise there can be no trust.”

The women judges have been on the bench in Kabul courts for the last 20 years, except during the Taliban’s rule from 1994 to 2001, and are in the United States for three weeks participating in the Afghan women judges program. The program, sponsored by the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) with the International Association of Women Judges, brings Afghan women judges to Vermont and Washington for three weeks to observe U.S. courts and participate in specially tailored courses. The legal training program began in 2004. An INL-sponsored project in 2005 educated Afghan girls in Kabul on their rights.

The Afghan judges observed cases in the Washington Superior Court and were especially interested in the American judge’s instructions to jurors in a criminal case.

SECURITY CONCERNS

There are no juries in Afghanistan. Judges decide court cases after reviewing hundreds of pages of evidence and information. Decisions are written by hand, often in dim light as electricity is scarce, the judges said.  And since parties to court cases often hold grudges, judges fear for their lives.

“As judges we do not feel safe,” a judge said at the roundtable discussion. “Security as an issue for us is ignored.”

Part of the problem, they said, is that the police and the military still are learning about the legal system and Afghans themselves rarely understand the law or the consequences of breaking the law.

“The courts, the police and the district attorneys are working hard to fight drug trafficking in Afghanistan,” a judge said, but, increasingly, the people who are apprehended are really victims of a larger problem.

“The drug lords are not the ones who get caught, and often the ones who get nabbed turn out to be victims because they don’t know the consequences of their actions and they don’t know whom they work for,” she added.

Often drug running is the only work available in Afghanistan, the judges said. If employment opportunities improve and people learn more about the law, the situation would be better, they added.

INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGES

Poor court facilities in Afghanistan reflect the country’s broken infrastructure, the judges said. “We don’t have the basics of life – water, electricity.”

For example, most courts are not located in separate buildings and share space with other agencies. The judges often do not have desks so they carry their folders with them wherever they go. There are no women’s bathrooms in these buildings so the judges must wait until there are no men present to use the facilities. In crowded courtrooms, judges waiting to hear their cases often find themselves seated next to defendants. The hallways are always dark, they said, because the country has limited electricity.

“The hallways are so dark I cannot see the people coming near me,” one judge said.

EXPERIENCING AMERICA

In Brattleboro, Vermont, where the judges stayed with American families, the women observed trial court proceedings and met with American judges to discuss women’s issues and judicial issues. The judges participated in a one-week training program at the Vermont Judicial College on the grounds of Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English at the foot of Bread Loaf Mountain.

“These women are so brave,” said Julie Peterson of the Rural Women Leadership Institute of Vermont, which coordinated the judges’ stay there.  “We’ve learned at least as much from them as they have from us.”

“Each time I meet with Afghan women leaders visiting the United States, I am humbled by the courage of these women who, in so many cases, persisted in educating children or providing basic health care to members of their community despite the massive restrictions placed on them by the ruthless Taliban regime,” said Ambassador Steven E. Steiner, acting senior coordinator for international women’s issues at the State Department and chair of the roundtable discussion.

“The United States remains firmly committed to assisting Afghanistan in its remarkable journey toward a strong democracy where all citizens enjoy equal rights and can aspire to economic prosperity,” Steiner said.

“I will take with me the collaboration, hospitality and kindness of heart of Americans,” one of the judges said during the roundtable discussion. “We never felt uncomfortable or distressed. I did not even feel away from my family.”

For more information on the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan, see Rebuilding Afghanistan and Afghan Women.