Watchdog: U.S. Taxpayers Funded Development of Sharia Law System in Afghanistan

The U.S. government has spent more than $1 billion in American taxpayer funds on programs to develop the rule of law in Afghanistan, including efforts to improve a judicial system that incorporates Islamic Sharia law, reports a watchdog agency appointed by Congress.

According to the watchdog agency known as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Departments of Defense (DOD), Justice (DOJ), State (State), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have spent more than $1 billion since 2003 on at least 66 completed and ongoing programs aimed at developing the rule of law in Afghanistan.

“This effort has focused on areas such as the judicial system, corrections system (detention centers and prisons), informal justice system, legislative reform, legal education, public outreach, and anticorruption efforts,” explains SIGAR.

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Citing the U.S. Army’s Center for Law and Military Operations’ Rule of Law Handbook, John Sopko, SIGAR’s inspector general, reports that the legal system in Afghanistan consists of two separate judicial systems that coexist — a formal and an informal system, both of which incorporate Sharia law.

The formal system of law is “practiced by state authorities relying on a mixture between the civil law and elements of Islamic Sharia law,” notes Sopko in the report, while the informal legal system is “based on customary tribal law and local interpretations of Islamic Sharia law.”

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