Legal News

American Lawyer Goes To Afghanistan to Reform Their System from Within
Download PDF
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading...

Kimberley Motley visited Afghanistan in 2008 as part of the US government’s rule-of-law support program and decided, finally, to stay on. What she discovered was that law was not developed and evenly applied in Afghanistan; what she decided was working within the system was the best way to make a difference.

She started out defending a girl imprisoned for “adultery” who was in fact raped and impregnated in 2010, and who was given the choices of 12 years in prison or to marry the rapist. Motley requested a presidential pardon, and after gaining 6,000 Afghan signatures in three days and citing Sharia law and Afghan law, was able to gain the girl’s pardon in December 2011 by President Karzai, and was released to a shelter.

  
What
Where


Her purpose in Afghanistan is to fight for human rights, to find victims willing to go public and “to create test cases of how things can be done,” as Christian Science Monitor reported.

Along this line, she helped draft a brief for the landmark 2009 appeal of an Afghan student who was sentenced to death for downloading an article on women’s rights.

She had spent five years with Wisconsin’s Public Defender’s Office before shipping off to Afghanistan. Once there, she spent two years in her own private legal services taking on foreign clients before finally familiarizing herself with the language and practice of Afghan law and feeling confident enough to take on Afghan clients.

Get JD Journal in Your Mail

Subscribe to our FREE daily news alerts and get the latest updates on the most happening events in the legal, business, and celebrity world. You also get your daily dose of humor and entertainment!!




Said Heather Barr, a researcher from Human Rights Watch, Afghan law is not that well integrated.

“You see this in the poor quality of judicial decisions, in the fact that there really isn’t any tradition of case laws, of precedent. So it’s a very, very weak system, and it’s a system where rule of law is really compromised. And this is one of the threats to stability here. There’s this feeling that if somebody violates your rights, if somebody comes to your house and steals from you or kills you, the government isn’t necessarily able or ready to protect you.”



Barr says that even lawyers and judges “cannot read and write well,” often enough, “let alone understand” Afghan law.

Motley is interested in contributed to some accountability and consistency in the system. In this, she as launched some sentencing guidelines drawn from Afghan law, collaborated with the Italian Cooperation, and which the supreme Court has “gotten on board” with, as she says, sentencing guidelines that they will try on juvenile cases to train judges.

She says such changes and “whether or not it’s sustainable is really up to the Afghan people – it’s always been up to whether or not they really want it.”

“Sometimes international attention is needed” said Mary Akrami, who was responsible for opening Kabul’s first women’s shelter. “But sometimes it is also very risky, given the reactions we’ve seen from conservatives.”



 

RELEVANT JOBS

Associate Attorney

USA-PA-Exton

ASSOCIATE ATTORNEY McKenna Snyder LLC, a law firm in Exton, PA has an immediate opening for an ex...

Apply now

Attorney

USA-MI-Sturgis

Qualifications: HaasCaywood is seeking associate attorneys for our Coldwater and Sturgis, Michiga...

Apply now

Attorney

USA-MI-Coldwater

Qualifications: HaasCaywood is seeking associate attorneys for our Coldwater and Sturgis, Michiga...

Apply now

Insurance Defense Trial Attorney/ Senior Counsel

USA-CA-San Francisco

Job description Trial Attorney - Personal Injury Defense Full Job Description Hickey Smith ...

Apply now

BCG FEATURED JOB

Locations:

Keyword:



Search Now

Education Law Attorney

USA-CA-El Segundo

El Segundo office of a BCG Attorney Search Top Ranked Law Firm seeks an education law attorney with ...

Apply Now

Education Law Attorney

USA-CA-Carlsbad

Carlsbad office of a BCG Attorney Search Top Ranked Law Firm seeks an education law attorney with 4-...

Apply Now

Education Law and Public Entity Attorney

USA-CA-El Segundo

El Segundo office of a BCG Attorney Search Top Ranked Law Firm seeks an education law and public ent...

Apply Now

Most Popular

SEARCH IN ARCHIVE

To Top