The Department of Publications in the MOJ performs the final task before promulgated laws are valid and enforceable in Afghanistan—i.e., it publishes the laws in Dari and Pashto in an official gazette that is then distributed to legal practitioners and made available to the public. The Ministry of Justice is the official licensee of the gazettes. On average, 2,000 copies of each official gazette are printed, although the number may rise significantly if a particular issue is deemed particularly important (for example, 21,000 copies of the 2004 Constitution were officially published). Copies of each gazette are to be distributed to all line ministries and to all provincial and district government offices, including the MOJ’s Office of Government Cases throughout the country. Individual gazettes are also available for sale to the public at the MOJ, with an annual subscription costing 500 Afghanis.
Official Gazette 787, Part I describes the manner of publishing legislative documents in Afghanistan. Those documents required to be published include laws, decrees, regulations, charters and declarations of the Council of Ministers of a legislative nature, international agreements and protocols to which Afghanistan is a signatory, legislative documents which the Supreme Court has the authority to approve and other legislative documents whose publication is required by law. The order in which different categories of legislative documents shall be presented in the gazette is as follows: (1) laws, (2) decrees, (3) regulations and charters, (4) international contracts, agreements and protocols, (5) legislative documents that the Supreme Court has the authority to approve and (6) other legislative documents, including commercial trademarks.
The Department of Publications has 36 employees, two of whom are professional members of the MOJ. The head of the Department of Publications reports directly to the Minister of Justice.
Once laws have been approved by the Cabinet and signed by the President, they are sent to the Taqnin for a final proofread and to correct any lingering translation errors. The Taqnin then sends the laws to the Department of Publications, which enters the laws into electronic format. The department currently has 12 computers in which to enter the laws. As mentioned, the laws must be entered in both Dari and Pashto before being sent to the printers.
The Department of Publications is also responsible for the publication of the monthly legal magazine Adalat (“Justice”) which is distributed to all government ministries and is also available for sale to the public. Adalat contains articles and essays written by academics and government officials on various issues related to law, politics and social issues in Afghanistan. Roughly 1,000 issues of the magazine are circulated each month. As noted in Chapter II of this report, the Taqnin considers itself the department within the MOJ tasked with publishing Adalat—it is likely that the Taqnin is tasked with assembling the actual articles to be included in the magazine, while the Department of Publications actually handles the publication and distribution.