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Chief Justice Under Scrutiny
The qualifications of the conservative chief justice of the supreme court, Fazil Hadi Shinwari, are being questioned in the wake of his controversial ban on cable television. Shinwari does not appear to meet the requirements for the post set out by the 1964 constitution, which is the law of the land under the Bonn Agreement. He is over the age limit of 60 and has not received an education in secular law. He's also an Islamist, and one thing Afghanistan's got is more than enough Islamists telling everybody in sight how they're supposed to behave and thinnk. But Shinwari, speaking to IWPR in a rare interview, defended his recent decision and insisted that he has the right to continue to hold his post. "I think the knowledge I have in Islamic studies and principles is enough for a chief justice," he said. "I will never accept and am not obliged to learn any law or regulation opposing Islamic law." But he acknowledged that "there are some foreign rules and regulations that are similar to Islamic laws, such as human rights, and I will never oppose them". "Don't need none o' them there books. Ever'thing I need to know, it's right there in the Koran." Shinwari, who is Pashtun, was born in 1930 in rural Nangahar province, eastern Afghanistan. He received his primary education from his father, who was a mullah, and other religious scholars. In 1945-46, he studied at the prestigious Dewband Madrasa in India, and he was also educated in Afghanistan in an Arabic madrasa. Former president Burhanuddin Rabbani appointed Shinwari to the supreme court in December 2001, just before the Bonn Agreement was adopted. President Hamed Karzai made him chief justice in June 2002, under the new legal system.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-04-01 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=12270 |