A critical study of the rights of accused persons during investigation in Afghanistan

Abstract

Afghanistan which had undergone several abrupt changes in the government since 1920, had been adopting and using several criminal justice systems. At one point, it was the Islamic criminal justice system but with a change in the government, the criminal justice system, in particular the criminal procedures also kept changing. With Soviet intervention and occupation in Afghanistan, and later the United States of America, the criminal justice system changed correspondingly to accommodate the government of the day. At no point was the criminal procedure that governs Afghanistan’s criminal justice system seriously revised or updated. Before the Criminal Procedure Code 2014 (hereinafter referred to as the Code 2014), the 1964 and 2003 Criminal Procedure Code were in place. The government led by President Hamid Karzai, probably with the assistance of the United States of America, was able to come up with Code 2014, which consolidated and updated the older codes. This 2014 Code was a turning point or a milestone in the Afghanistan criminal justice system, which accommodated human rights principles under the Islamic laws and international laws, thereby; ensuring not only a transparent justice system but also guaranteeing the rights of an accused under investigation and the community interest in the fight against crime. Be that as it may, Afghanistan was still not quite stable, as the government had to focus on containing separatists or belligerents known as the Taliban; Hence, the 2014 Code was left as it is without being updated. Now, Afghanistan is under the Taliban regime, which still maintains the 2014 Code. Under the 2014 Criminal Procedure Code, one of the basic responsibilities of the country's criminal justice system is to safeguard the rights of the accused. In this regard, this study seeks to critically analyze the rights of the accused person under investigation in Afghanistan as provided in the 2014 Code; This is to determine whether it was good enough and adequately safeguards the rights of the accused who is under investigation. From the findings of this research, the researcher could provide appropriate recommendations to improve the 2014 Code.