Library Helps Reconstruct Laws of Torn Country
By John McArdle Thursday, July 25, 2002

Deep in the Library of Congress, 15 decrees of former Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar stand side by side with civil codes written during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and a translation of the nation's original constitution.

Today researchers and international groups are using this unique and extensive collection to help build a new government in Afghanistan.

As the country's new president, Hamid Karzai, and Afghanistan's new leadership attempt to recreate a rule of law destroyed by years of Taliban rule, the State Department is sponsoring an initiative to reassemble the laws in effect in the war-shattered country prior to Soviet and Taliban rule. When complete, about
1,000 copies of these codes will be distributed to key government institutions throughout Afghanistan to use as building blocks for a new government.

"When the Taliban were gone, the judges could not find any copies of the codes of Afghanistan," said Gholam Bafai, a senior legal specialist at the Law Library of Congress who handles research and reference for Afghanistan. "Providing copies of the laws of Afghanistan is a critical first step in a return to the previously existing rule of law and for the development of the legal system in Afghanistan."

As part of this enterprise, the International Resources Group and the American Bar Association's Asia Law Initiative asked the Law Library of Congress to locate a missing portion of Afghanistan's law codes that could not be found anywhere else. What the Law Library found among its collection of more than 2.5 million items from all over the world was a unique, two-volume English translation of Afghanistan's laws published before the Soviet occupation in the mid-1970s. In the past weeks, the Law Library has compiled these materials onto CD-ROMs and distributed them in Afghanistan through the International Resources Group. These compilations will be used to help international officials and native Afghans understand and communicate with each other about laws that were in place four decades ago.

"The effort to reconstruct Afghanistan's laws is an example of the Law Library's dedication to supporting the rule of law among nations around the world, and our ability to provide the necessary support in a timely fashion," said Law Librarian of Congress Rubens Medina.

The Law Library keeps legal gazettes and collects yearly updates on government laws for almost every country in the world.

"We have collections for some countries that are better than those countries have themselves," said Janice Hyde, program officer for the Law Library.

The library's Afghan law collection dates to the years following the country's break from British control following World War I. Sporadic collection of law documents continued in the late 1920s and early '30s, and by the '40s the Law Library had established a regular method of document collection.

According to Hyde, the Library of Congress field office in Islamabad, Pakistan,
was able to obtain updates of Afghan law even when the ruling regime in Afghanistan was not friendly toward the United States.

Afghanistan first began losing pieces of its own law codes after the democratic leadership of King Mohammad Zahir Shah was overthrown by a military coup in 1973. Further destruction of Afghan collections occurred during the Soviet invasion of 1979 and the civil wars in the late 1980s and early '90s.

After the Taliban rose to power in 1996, the decrees of Mullah Omar and his harsh form of Islamic law became the new governing institute, and previous legal codes were often intentionally burned and destroyed.

The International Resources Group first approached the Law Library in March. In its publication titled "Prerequisites to Security in Afghanistan," the organization concluded that international groups should assist and support the Afghan Ministry of Justice "as it undertakes the critical and complex task of determining the applicable legislative framework and should help with the publication and distribution of governing laws."

For the transitional government in Afghanistan, the work of the Law Library and
groups such as International Resources Group have been a positive step for a recovering country.

"All attempts aimed at restoration of democracy, rule of law, civil society and good governance are welcomed by the transitional government," said Haron Amin, deputy chief of mission at the Afghan embassy in Washington.