JURIST EXCLUSIVE – Lawyers from across Afghanistan have sent letters to the Taliban cabinet seeking the restoration of the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association after the Ministry of Justice took over its premises and assumed its lawyer licensing power last week. On November 23, armed Taliban fighters entered the Association’s offices in Kabul, forced objecting lawyers and staff inside to leave, and announced the installation of a new president said to have no professional experience.

Copies of letters obtained by JURIST and signed by multiple lawyers from Mazar-e-Sharif, Samangan, Faryab, Jawzjan and Herat provinces call on the Taliban government to respect the independent AIBA and its licensing power as supports to the administration of justice and the rights of litigants, and flag the AIBA’s connection with the International Bar Association, which helped establish it in 2008.  They also assert that the continuing independence of the AIBA is not contrary to Islamic teaching. Given delicate circumstances in Afghanistan under the new regime, however, the letters are carefully postured as requests for consideration and not demands. To this point the Taliban authorities have not responded publicly to the appeals. 

Via a lawyer in Kabul, here is a rough English translation from Dari of one of the letters appealing for reconsideration of the AIBA’s effective shutdown as an independent licensing authority:

To the esteemed official of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

As you know, advocacy is one of the basic needs of litigants in the courts.

To this end, the Bar Association was established in 2008 as an independent and non-governmental organization and gained membership in the International Bar Association due to its independence.

Recently, the esteemed cabinet of the Islamic Emirate has decided that the esteemed Ministry of Justice will issue licenses for lawyers. And the association should be merged in the Ministry of Justice.

As the Afghanistan Bar Association is a non-governmental organization, by doing so, the association’s many years of achievements as well as membership in the International Bar Association will be lost.

In our [the lawyers of Herat] opinion, the non-governmental nature of the association is more in favor of justice and has no conflict with the religious texts.

Therefore, we agree on the independence of the association.

So, we ask the High Authority to recognize this institution as a non-governmental union and to order the relevant authority to issue the licenses in order to advance its affairs.

On the one hand, to solve the problems of our lawyers and on the other hand to implement the decision of the cabinet of the Islamic Emirate.

This statement is written as a suggestion.

The High Authority will instruct the relevant authority as they see fit.