Twenty judges working in Focused District Development (FDD) target districts completed criminal justice training on November 6 in Kabul.

The intensive, two-week program included judges from Baghlan, Farah, Ghazni, Helmand, Kandahar, Kapisa, Kunduz, Nangarhar, Paktya, Uruzgan, and Zabul provinces. These judges received training on Afghan Constitutional Law; Penal Law; Private Penal Law; Criminal Procedure; and Special Criminal Laws, such as anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, counter-narcotics, and crimes against internal and external security. The judges also participated in a half-day seminar on women’s rights under Islam.

One of the participating judges from Baghlan province stated, “From my point of view and from my friends’ [fellow judges] point of view, it was a very good training program.  It was well adapted regarding our daily work and proficiency.  It was good for the present circumstances of Afghanistan. For example, I was not well informed of the basic rights of parties, but we received training on these rights.  And also, we received information on the Regulation of Judicial Conduct.”

A number of the judges also received training on the Regulation of Judicial Conduct—a new code of ethics for all Afghan judges that was adopted by the Supreme Court in June 2007.  To date, over 800 of Afghanistan’s approximately 1,400 judges have received Regulation of Judicial Conduct training.

Developing a well-informed, professional team of judges, lawyers, and police is central to Afghanistan’s formal justice system.  This training, facilitated by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) rule of law project, is part of a joint training effort led by the FDD program and the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), which focuses on training police teams district by district throughout the country.  The U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) is training prosecutors as part of this effort.

The first Criminal Justice Program was held last May in Herat and a third program for remaining judges in FDD-target areas is scheduled for December.