- Afghan Constitution Commission
The Afghan Constitution Commission (or Afghan Constitutional Commission) was established
October 5 ,2002 as required by the Bonn Agreement, which stipulated that a new Afghanconstitution be adopted by aloya jirga . The loya jirga was required to convene within eighteen months of the establishment of Afghan Transitional Administration, which was established in June2002 . After some delay, the proposed Afghan Constitution was presented to PresidentHamid Karzai onNovember 3 ,2003 . A loya jirga beganDecember 14 ,2003 (four days after schedule) inKabul and was endorsedJanuary 4 ,2004 .Make up of the Commission
The initial Commission was made up of nine members and started work on
October 5 ,2002 . After its work was completed (although no draft was released) the initial Commission was replaced onMay 7 ,2003 by a 35-member Reviewing Commission, referred to as the Constitution Commission. The 35 members were all appointed by president Karzai. Seven of the members were women.The commission set up eight regional offices in Jalalabad,
Herat ,Kunduz , Kabul,Gardez ,Kandahar ,Mazar andBamyan as well as in thePakistan i cities ofPeshawar andQuetta , and in theIran ian cities ofTehran andMashhad .The process was being monitored by the
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and was funded by theUnited Nations Development Programme .Consultation process
Consultations with the Afghan public started
June 10 ,2003 . Commission teams from Kabul and regional offices made trips through Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.Afghan refugees in theUnited States were also said to be consulted. The commission also distributedposter s andleaflet s, and a monthlynewsletter .Radio andtelevision announcements were also made.Delays and Final Release
The initial goal was for the Commission to present the draft constitution by
September 1 ,2003 , but in August commission members asked for a two-month delay to allow more time to gather reactions. OnAugust 28 Wardak announced that the loya jirga had been postponed untilDecember 10 . The commission wanted more time to consult with Afghans.Farooq Wardak , the director of the commission's secretariat, said the delay would give Afghans more time to decide if they wanted a republic, a parliamentary system, or a return to a monarchy. Other issues, he said, included the degree of centralization in Kabul and the role of Islam. He said 100,000 questionnaires from all provinces of Afghanistan had been completed and sent to the Commission.The Commission presented its proposed constitution on
November 3 ,2003 . The ceremony was attended by president Karzai, former kingMohammad Zaher Shah , andUnited Nations special envoyLakhdar Brahimi .The draft was distributed throughout the country to Provincial Governors and Wuluswals for distribution to political leaders. It was also be widely distributed via the Regional Offices of Secretariat of the Constitutional Commission to ELJ district representatives, to the media, including magazines
Kellid andMorsal .Opposition to the Proposed Constitution
Bacha Khan Zadran , aPashtun warlord inPaktia province , criticized the proposed Constitution for abolishing the hereditary monarchy.Mahbuba Hoquqmal , the Afghan Minister of Women's Affairs, said the constitution does not grant protection to women's property rights, and does not prevent women being forced to marry without their consent, and does not offer better guarantees of equal treatment by Afghanistan's courts.Members of Uzbeks, Turkmens and
Baluch said that the Proposed Constitution alienated their cultures. For example, the draft states thatPashto andDari would be the two official languages, and that the national anthem would be sung in Pashto.Other issues raised by some loya jriga delegates included whether former king
Mohammed Zahir Shah should maintain the title "father of the nation," whether Afghanistan should be a free market economy, and whether higher education should be free.External links
* [http://www.unama-afg.org/ The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan's website] - includes documents on the constitutional process.
* [http://www.unhcr.org.uk/afghanistan/documents/38eng_000.pdf UNHCR document PDF original includes details of the commission's work and initial public opinion, divided by region]
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