Law on Investigation on Juvenile Violations
PREFACE
It is an understatement to say Afghanistan is facing critical challenges and hard transitions.
The Afghan people face the immense task of rebuilding a country. Three decades of conflict
have hurt Afghanistan, not only devastating the country’s infrastructure, but also stunting the
institutions that educate and cultivate new leaders. Most significantly, Afghanistan faces a dire
shortage of qualified lawyers. This shortage will be keenly felt during times of transition, as the
participation of skilled legal practitioners is crucial to rebuilding Afghanistan. These challenges,
nevertheless, present an opportunity for the young citizens of Afghanistan to create positive
change and become leaders for their country.
In response to these challenges and opportunities, Stanford Law School’s Afghanistan
Legal Education Project (ALEP) began in the fall of 2007. The project is a student-initiated
program dedicated to helping Afghanistan’s universities train the next generation of Afghan
lawyers. More broadly, ALEP hopes to train the next generation of leaders who will drive
Afghanistan’s reconstruction and recovery.
In 2007, the founding team members produced the project’s first major work, An
Introduction to the Law of Afghanistan. For its second major project, the team focused on an area
of law critical to the national rebuilding efforts, criminal law. The creation of a properly
functioning criminal justice system, rooted in the rule of law, is pivotal to the sustainable
development of the country and its full integration into the international community. With these
ideas in mind, the ALEP team has created a criminal law textbook that exposes its readers to
every facet of Afghanistan’s criminal law, from the attributes of crime, to the central role of
Islamic Law, and from the substantive criminal laws, to the concepts of victims’ and defendants’
rights.
In the 2008-2009 school year, the ALEP team was composed of Stanford Law students
Una Au, Raaj Narayan, Max Rettig, Scott Schaeffer, Anne Stephens, Eli Sugarman, and
Geoffrey Swenson. The students were supervised by Erik Jensen, Co-Director of Stanford Law
School’s Rule of Law Program, and Larry Kramer, Stanford Law School Dean. The ALEP team
is grateful for Dean Kramer’s enthusiasm for this project, and would also like to acknowledge
the support of Deborah Zumwalt, General Counsel of Stanford University and member of
American University of Afghanistan’s (AUAF) Board of Trustees.
ALEP is also delighted to continue its partnership with AUAF, and is particularly grateful
for the support of AUAF’s Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Athanasios Moulakis.
In the 2010-2012 school years ALEP team members edited and updated the Criminal Law
textbook to produce this most up to date version, which is the Second Edition of the Criminal
Law of Afghanistan.
This textbook consists of five chapters that will familiarize the reader with criminal law in
Afghanistan. It is our sincere hope that the information and commentary in this textbook will
help readers make the ethical and responsible decisions that will solidify the rule of law in
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Afghanistan, regardless of the careers they choose to pursue.
It should be noted at the outset that Islamic Law guides all aspects of Afghan criminal
law, from the Constitution to the Criminal Code and its individual statutes. Therefore, this
textbook would not be complete without a discussion of Islamic Law and its place in
Afghanistan’s criminal law. While we endeavor to expose students to some aspects of Islamic
Law, this text should not be seen as conclusive on matters of Islamic Law or the Islamic faith,
but rather an introductory understanding aimed at exposing issues rather than aimed at offending
any particular believer.
The reader should be aware that there is a substantial divergence among scholars regarding
the interpretation and punishment of crimes under Islamic Law. We do not seek to take part in
this debate. Instead, we attempt to lay out a very basic overview of Islamic Law and its influence
on Afghanistan’s criminal law. We hope that by doing so, our readers will appreciate and further
investigate this complex relationship, namely by studying many of the nuanced interpretations.
With this understanding, Chapter 1 familiarizes readers with the history of Afghanistan’s
criminal laws and introduces them to the major themes pursued throughout the text. The chapter
considers three major topics in depth: the objectives of the criminal law, the sources of criminal
law, and the history of criminal law in Afghanistan.
Chapter 2 discusses the basic elements of prohibited acts. In short, the chapter details the
fundamental elements of crime, each of which must exist before a defendant can be found guilty.
Among the elements required by law, this chapter evaluates (1) whether the action is classified as
a crime when it is committed (the legal element); (2) whether the defendant’s actions match
those actions criminalized by the applicable code sections (the material element); and (3)
whether the defendant possesses the requisite mental state when the crime is committed (the
mental element).
Chapter 3 closely examines the consequences of criminal acts under the Penal Code and
individual statutes. The chapter seeks to investigate the core values and principles underpinning
criminal responsibility. The chapter also serves as a general primer on the most important
limitations of criminal liability. Students will be able to critically examine how the Penal Code
addresses problems stemming from criminal acts perpetrated by “legal persons,” such as
corporations or labor unions, in addition to those of “natural persons,” or humans.
Chapter 4 is intended to help students critically examine the role of punishment.
In
particular, the chapter considers the current rules governing punishment and evaluates their place
in society. The punishment process outlined in Chapter 4, of course, may differ in significant
respects from the realities of crime and punishment as they exist in everyday life. A familiarity
with the law, nevertheless, is important for both students and practitioners, even if the letter of
the law is not always followed.
Chapter 5, finally, is devoted to a careful examination of Afghanistan’s substantive
crimes. It discusses the influence of Islamic Law and the crimes that are defined by its teachings,
including hudud, qisas, and ta’azir. The great majority of the chapter looks at the positive law as
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it exists in the Penal Code and various statutes. The discussion highlights crimes against the state
(bribery and corruption, drug cultivation/trafficking, terrorist financing, and money laundering),
crimes against the person (homicide, assault and battery, robbery, kidnapping, and rape), and
crimes against property (embezzlement, larceny, burglary, and fraud). Finally, the chapter
examines how defendants contest charges of criminal wrongdoing, primarily through the use of
defense lawyers.
We sincerely hope that you will enjoy studying, debating, and engaging with these
materials, your fellow students, and the faculty of your University