Tussle at the top

The Afghan Parliament, dominated by minority interests, initiates a series of bills, not all of them intended to benefit the people it represents. AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR

June 17, 2007

IN October 2005, the international community was in a celebratory mood. Elections to Afghanistan’s first fully representational parliament had been completed. Sceptics and critics were silenced as doubters and cynics. Yet, since then, this opti mism has dribbled out. Violence has reached proportions higher than at anytime since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 and there are serious issues regarding the non-delivery of development. However, while these problems are visible, less evident but more serious are the systemic flaws that are revealing themselves in the institutions of State. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the Parliament itself.Hurried reforms
In 2005 the international community pushed through its agenda of Parliamentary elections in the face of concerned and informed criticism on the grounds that a less than perfect election was better than no election since it was time to empower the representatives of the people. In its eagerness to meet its own deadline, it accepted many compromises. It agreed to President Karzai’s desire to ban political parties from contesting (in any other country this would have been likened to autocratic governance), it agreed to a multi-seat constituency contest while marrying it to the single non-transferable vote system — a hybrid system that beggared belief. Elections also took place before a country-wide census (anyone claiming to be a voter could get a voter identity card), before the disarmament of the legal and illegal armed groups and before any efforts to rein in the more powerful war lords. The result has been a Parliament that is dominated by a minority of interests. In the absence of political parties, issued based politics and ideologies, the most powerful groups emerging from Parliament are those coming together to preserve the status quo, whether it is their own power or a conservative dogma.
Adding to the confusion is a lack of clarity about the procedures of Parliament, or even the demarcation of authority between the three pillars of State. In fact each contested decision is now becoming the battleground for this separation of powers, with the jury out on who will emerge the strongest.
The first visibly disturbing law to be passed was the “amnesty law”. The bill, piloted by former warlords, called for immunity from prosecution for all jihadis, regardless of their actions, on the grounds that they shoul d be honoured. It also called for reconciliation with currently warring groups.
What of the MPs? The Chairman of the Religious and Cultural Affairs Commission, Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq, a former commander, told this reporter that the international community should not interfere with the right of the Parliament to make laws. “There is a contradiction in the action of the international community. First they spent $360 million to organise elections and now they are criticising democracy. We have the right to make laws. Anyone criticizing us is violating our sovereignty and interfering in our internal affairs. The Parliament is the highest law making body.”
Woman MP Shukriya Barakzai challenged this right stating, “in which country does a criminal become his own judge? These people are just using their chairs to protect themselves.”Missing the wood
Eventually protests from the international community led President Karzai to include a clause that would allow individuals to pursue prosecution for individual crimes notwithstanding the reconciliation with currently warring groups. This was, at best, a dubious protection of the interests of the thousands of victims. However, rather than pursuing this flagrant breach of the human rights of victims of war crimes, the international community decided to accept each clause at its face value on a stand-alone basis, rather than examine the contradictions of the law in its totality.
The debate however opened up interesting questions about the authority of the parliament. While internationals suggested that war crimes could not fall within the ambit of amnesty, parliamentarians cited the process of reconciliation in South Africa to defend their right. So did the members have the right, however morally reprehensible their decision might have been?
This week threw up yet another conundrum. The fieriest parliamentarian in Afghanistan, the young woman MP Malalai Joya was suspended for insulting the house. In her comparison of Parliament with an animal barn, animals had come off better. Human Rights Watch rushed to her defence arguing “the article banning criticism of parliament is an unreasonable rule that violates the principle of free speech enshrined in international law and valued around the world.” While the extent of the punishment, suspension for the remainder of her entire term was indeed extreme, there are provisions for punitive action for breach of privilege in every parliament and HRW may have jumped the gun.
In recent weeks, the Parliament has also attempted to dismiss two ministers of the Hamid Karzai on ground of non performance. While Karzai accepted the removal of one minister, he has challenged the decision on the second on the grounds that the process was flawed. The international community came up with an entirely different stance saying that the right of parliament to dismiss ministers was not spelt out explicitly. While the Supreme Court will be the deciding authority the issue does highlight the differing interpretations or rules.
A similar confusion exists over a “bill” passed by the Parliament’s upper house calling for an end to military operations by international forces and talks with the Taliban. No one is quite clear whether the upper house has the authority to initiate a bill.Controversial moves
Other contentious moves have included attempts to pass through a media bill restricting many rights (the bill has now been moderated after an intense campaign by journalists and is under consideration) and several moves which have received far less publicity since they relate to women’s rights, a low priority for parliament, the international community and the Afghan government. They include attempts to lower the age of majority of girls to 13 years, make it mandatory for women MPs and officials to have a mehram or male escort from the family for visits outside the country and an attempt to abolish the Ministry of Women’s Affairs altogether.
The series of conflicts leads to an interesting conundrum. How do you strengthen a democratic institution, the Parliament, while at the same time tempering its democratic authority in the interests of upholding larger democratic values?