Taliban said Tuesday they approved and published 24 legislative documents during the 1447 Islamic lunar year, including new judicial regulations that have drawn criticism from legal experts and human rights advocates over their treatment of women and the administration of justice.
Speaking during the Taliban’s weekly “Government in the Mirror of the Press” program, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the documents included laws, regulations, procedures, decrees and annexes published in their official gazette.
The announcement comes after the Taliban replaced Afghanistan’s official calendar from the solar Hijri system to the Islamic lunar calendar.
Mujahid said the Taliban drafted 137 legislative documents during the year and published 24 of them in the official gazette, including decrees issued by their supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Among the latest measures are the Regulation on Judicial Separation of Spouses and the Criminal Procedure Regulation for Courts, both published by the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice.
The regulation governing judicial separation has drawn criticism because it recognizes child marriage under certain circumstances and treats a girl’s silence after reaching puberty as consent to marriage.
The criminal procedure regulation has also faced criticism for classifying people into four social categories—religious scholars, elites, the middle class and the lower class—and prescribing different penalties for the same offense depending on the offender’s status. Under the regulation, a religious scholar who commits certain offenses may receive only advice or a warning, while a person classified as lower class could face imprisonment or corporal punishment for the same conduct.
During the same program, Mujahid said Taliban courts—including primary, appellate and supreme courts—reviewed more than 262,000 cases during the 1447 lunar year.
He also said the Taliban had instructed primary courts to resolve cases within one and a half months, while appellate and supreme courts were directed to issue decisions within one month, describing the measure as an effort to speed up judicial proceedings.
Former judge Mohammad Qasim Homan said faster case processing could strengthen public confidence in the justice system if implemented fairly.
“If the review of cases in court is prolonged, justice is the first casualty,” Homan said. “Public trust in the judiciary declines, and people may resort to illegal means instead of seeking justice through the courts.”
The Taliban’s latest legal measures come amid growing international concern over access to justice in Afghanistan.
Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, has said that since the Taliban returned to power, legal support structures for women and girls have been severely weakened, leaving many—particularly survivors of violence—with significant barriers to accessing justice.
