“The Whole Justice System of Afghanistan is Rotten”
"Both Shinwari and his deputy chief justice, Abdul Malik Kamawi, have been members of Sayyaf's militia group, the Ittehad-I Islami"
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Since the summer of 2002, septuagenarian Fazel Hadi Shinwari has run Afghanistan's Supreme Court like the respected Islamic scholar he is.
“They're just focusing on the Supreme Court, but the whole justice system is rotten," says one Afghan official privately. "Who are the nine Supreme Court justices? They're all mullahs," this official says. "If you focus on the Supreme Court, it's going to be viewed as focusing on Islam."
He has banned the Afghan feminist Sima Samar from holding a cabinet position, after she reportedly said she didn't believe in Islamic sharia law.
He has banned an Afghan TV station for showing what he called "half-naked singers and obscene scenes from movies." He has also spoken against coeducation; has supported the employment of women (if they wear head scarves); and ordered the arrest of an Afghan journalist who suggested that, in some cases, the Koran was open to interpretation. The charges in this case were blasphemy, punishable by death.
Mr. Shinwari says these decisions are based on Islamic law. But as a growing chorus of European and Western donor nations call on the government to reform and professionalize the judicial system - as required by the Constitution and the Afghanistan Compact signed in London on Feb. 1 - the chief justice says that Afghanistan will be governed by Islamic laws or tumble into violent civil conflict.
"Anything that is according to the Koran is fine with me, but if you go against the Koran, you Europeans will have to tell Karzai to get rid of this old man who is in charge of the Supreme Court," says Shinwari, a lean but sturdy man whose white turban shows his rank as a maulvi, or top religious scholar.
"... but a woman cannot be a judge over the general country, and she cannot sit in this chair," says Shinwari, who also serves as head of Afghanistan's Council of Islamic Scholars. "If a woman becomes a top judge, then what would happen when she has a menstruation cycle once a month and she cannot go to the mosque? Also, a woman judge cannot give an execution order, according to Islamic law."
