Nominee Minister of Justice Presents his Work-Plans to House of Representatives
Esteemed Qazawatpooh Fazil Ahmad Manawi, nominee and acting minister of Justice, presented his work-plans to the House of Representatives today Tuesday, 17th November 2020.
Manawi said that the Ministry of Justice represents the justice sector of the country at the government level and is a policy-making ministry both in the justice and government level. He added that this ministry at the same time is a bridge linking the government and the parliament and also a partner of justice institutions.
Nominee Minister of Justice said that within the two months, he has assessed all the problems of the Ministry of Justice and plans to bring procedural and textual changes in this ministry, the implementation of which is interrelated to the support of members of House of Representatives.
Delineating his plans, he emphasized to modernize and standardize the legislative processing, handling legal cases, defending public properties, providing legal aid, translating legislative documents and notarizing the translation of legal documents, and combating human and migrants trafficking through the High Commission for Combating Human Trafficking, and smuggling of migrants.
Fazil Ahmad Manawi said the Ministry of Justice is directly responsible to manage and lead issues related to the legislative drafting in the country. He clarified that the legislative process is currently going on in a classic and old fashioned manner, which needs for an earnest modernization.
Acting Minister of Justice said that the legislation ought to be done in a modern and advanced way as that of the developed countries and the laws of other countries must be studied thoroughly to make this process more efficient. He added: "I am trying to ensure that the legislative researchers and scrutinizers have full access to online libraries. I would try that all legislative documents are revised and arranged in a modern style to be responsive to the national and international needs."
He insisted that they would to bring the people in loop to the drafting and preparing the legislative documents and to take the viewpoints of the experts into account for each area that we make the legislative document for. This would undeniably prepare the grounds for better implementation of provisions of the law in the society and once people see themselves involved in making laws, they would ensure their voluntary participation in their implementation.
Acting Minister of Justice said that the legislative drafting will not afterwards be conducted behind the closed doors and they will transform the legislative affairs into a legal educations center and the institute of legislation would be at disposal of students and researchers so that are able to visit and learn the legislation process.
Fazil Ahmad Manawi said that efforts are being made; to henceforward provide the draft laws to the House of Representatives so that its further processing is accomplished conveniently. He also said that the translation of international conventions and treaties into official languages of the country have so many problems that they are counselling with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to figure them out so that these instruments are shared with the Ministry of Justice before they are signed and that the responsibility of translation of treaties and conventions be transferred to this ministry.
He added that they would cooperate the government institutions in explaining and distributing the laws so that all institutions have the laws available with themselves and the employees understand the laws to implement them; because it is considered to be one of the duties of the Ministry of Justice.
Acting Minister of Justice deemed the inexistence of commentaries for laws as one of the important problems in this arena hindering the implementation of laws. He further added that it is intended to launch the Initiative to explain laws with the invitation of religious (sharia), legal and qualified scholars of justice and legal entities in collaboration with the Supreme Court, the Attorney General's Office, the Independent Bar Association and the Lawyers’ Association of Afghanistan.
He also talked about his agendas for the Department of Huqoq, believing that it plays the role of a corridor toward the courts through which cases go to the courts, and if this department is active, small number of cases will be referred to the courts and most cases will get resolved on the spot in the same department.
Fazil Ahmad Manawi said that the court decisions are being implemented by the Huqoq department, which is subject to some criticisms however this office is tantamount to an ordinary department in terms of organizational structure and the privileges but fortunately, they have developed an outline to professionalize and make accountable this office.
He further added that there are certain problems within the state cases department, and a written plan has been prepared to fix them and at the same time shared with to the office of president of Afghanistan.
Legal aid was another portion of the programs of the Acting Minister of Justice, which he presented to the House of Representatives. He called the presence of a defense lawyer a requirement for a fair trial and said that if the accused is destitute, Ministry of Justice is to provide him/her a defense lawyer; but the resources of the ministry in this area are constrained.
He said that he has a specific plan to increase the capacity of existing lawyers, absorb more defense lawyers and hire them in remote districts and areas.
Nominee Minister of Justice also said that providing public legal awareness is another responsibility of the Ministry of Justice which is carried out by the field publicity teams. He said ignorance of the law is not an excuse; but most of us are unaware of the law and that is why legal awareness is carried out.
Mr. Manawi added that currently, our legal awareness officers can go to some mosques and schools to raise awareness; but we need to be able to go everywhere and give legal awareness. Need to be able to go to Office of President and advice on rules and procedures; need to go to parliament and make legal awareness.
He also said that they plan to set up a TV Station for legal awareness with assistance of the justice institutions; if this stations is not established, we will set up a legal radio station and promote the awareness level through it. He emphasized that the legal awareness should be expanded at this very proper time and opportunity.
Acting Minister of Justice said that he also plans to combat against human trafficking and migrant smuggling to make more coordination at the top level of the relevant commission so that this phenomenon, providing benefits to the smugglers and pain to the people, is exterminated.
