Developing the improvised justice sector in Afghanistan shows that without professionalism, justice will remain inefficient.

Afghanistan is crippled with all kinds of injustice. If ever brought to court, most cases are handled in a way that hardly resembles anything we associate to a modern judiciary sector, still nowhere to be seen in Afghanistan. All in all, the entire province of Faryab, the 7th most populous in Afghanistan, had, before ACTED’s intervention, only two court buildings. ACTED added three more courthouses to the number, while a pending follow-up project is about to build two more. Still, these add up to only seven courthouses in a province of 14 districts.

The majority of judges, not lucky enough to work within a dedicated court building, has no other choice but to treat cases in an office lent by a local District Governor or inside a mosque. Considering the lack of awareness on the role and limits of the judiciary sector, such a physical proximity between civil, judicial and religious actors inevitably blurs all differences between their respective characters. Hence the importance of the new courts, which are often the most impressive buildings in rural district centers, as they raise the visibility and prestige of the judiciary, and protect those inside from being subject to manipulations.

Although it is a good sign, rendering the judiciary visible is not an end in itself. In a country where the use of law remains vague, the populations are very concerned with the way this instrument is used. Stories about courts that ordinary people share tend to revolve around the influence of powerful landowners and warlords over the institution. The fear of influential landlords and religious officials, whose power reaches the highest institutions in Kabul, was actually a subject brought up by Faryab judges and prosecutors themselves during the training sessions of the project.

Under these particular circumstances, only increased professionalism, qualification and awareness can allow the employees of the judicial sector to save their institution and preserve it for future generations. ACTED has thus intervened in the Faryab Province in North-West Afghanistan to conduct a ‘Support to Justice Sector’ project, jointly financed by the European Commission through the International Organisation for Migration and the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The partnership with the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences (ISISC) and the coordination with the provincial Supreme Court will eventually lead to the construction of three new courthouses and the training of 29 local judges and 28 prosecutors.

ACTED Afghanistan estimates that it is only by increasing their qualifications and legal knowledge that judges and prosecutors will gradually begin to harness the power of the law and exercise it against those who threaten it. This is only the first step towards the development of justice at the provincial level; the current judicial situation indeed requires many other projects of the kind.