Riddhi Raheja & Lakshitha Amballa,
Introduction: A Beacon of Justice in the Ruins
“Don’t assume that just because women are veiled we have no voice,” she said, speaking out as an Afghan activist at the United Nations in 2001, expressing a lasting reality: justice in Afghanistan tends to arise from the strength of its people more than institutions (Jamila qtd, in Wired). Outside Kabul’s shiny Supreme Court, reality is sobering, long lines, corruption, and delays disenfranchise many, especially rural communities (Human Rights Watch). However, in dusty village courtyards, justice is alive through jirgas, shuras, and youth assemblies. These grassroots councils hold cultural legitimacy and provide swift answers. But their rulings frequently disappear, never influencing individual rights or formal institutions. This paper, jointly authored, presents a new vision by engaging community judgments within civil records, maintaining their legal effect beyond cycles of aid, and strengthening the voice of citizens through legal literacy, Afghanistan is able to build a pluralistic justice system centered on hope and inclusion. In contrast to previous research where informal justice was viewed as stopgap measures, we envision a comprehensive justice framework that brings together tradition, administrative stability, and people’s agency into a lasting and optimistic future.
Community Driven Justice: Supplementing Formal Law
Afghan villagers often reject courts overwhelmed by nepotism, expense, and inefficiency. Community-based mechanisms settle an estimated 80% of conflicts due to their accessibility and culturally relatable processes, according to a study in the Asian Journal of Law and Society (Cambridge, 1). Legal academics Ibrahim and Maidin characterize jirgas as “swift, accessible, and affordable,” pointing out their use of local customs (Ibrahim & Maidin, 50). These choices are enforced by Arbaki, volunteer enforcers who are respected by the community (ICRSS).
These local tribunals are not extralegal; they are restorative justice courts restoring social equilibrium instead of meting out punishment (USIP). Although the Supreme Court, under the Afghan Constitution (Article 121), has final legal jurisdiction, most villagers find formal courts out of touch. In reaction, in 2010, the government suggested formally recognizing conciliatory shuras to operate alongside courts, although gender justice worries held up official adoption. We believe that formalization of these local councils for civil litigation, with an apparent appeals process up to the courts, could construct a sustainable model of legal pluralism.
Embedding Justice: From Oral Verdicts to Civic Record
Without records, even judicious judgments are lost to history. The Internet Silk Road Initiative, or M‑Jirga pilot, employed cell phones to convene elders for conflict resolution in outlying villages (Wired). But judgments were forgotten, lost to spoken memory. We advocate for integrating these judgments into civic systems through community legal registries. Whether via solar tablets or SMS sites, CDC-based kiosks would record conflict resolutions, which would then feed district registries and individuals’ e‑Tazkiras.
Written resolutions convert traditional choices into accepted legal entitlements, land ownership, marriage, and inheritance, thereby enhancing individual legal agency. This closes the gap between informal resolution and administrative validation, allowing rural citizens to cite written results in formal courts. Such incorporation converts transient justice into lasting civic order, combining grassroots effectiveness with national unity.
Legal Literacy: Translating Rights into Community Agency
Confidence in justice is in vain without a sense of rights. IWPR research reports that women are usually excluded and assumed guilty in jirga proceedings, whereas the presence of youth enhances fairness. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province in Pakistan, integrated peace committees composed of elders and police suppressed violent traditions like baad by sensitizing them to statutory legislation (openDemocracy).
Our vision is legal literacy centers in CDCs, local facilities providing modular instruction on property rights, family law, constitutional requirements, and protocols for settling disputes. The centers would render higher-court rationales into understandable language, keeping citizens informed about their rights and recourse from the judiciary. When villagers, particularly women and children, understand the jargon of law, they can reinforce or counteract judgments within communities, strengthening accountability and harmonizing decisions with constitutional protections.
Toward a Justice Ecosystem: Interweaving Custom, Record, and Awareness
The breakthrough lies in weaving these threads into a Justice as Community Infrastructure narrative. Imagine a land conflict in Helmand: a shura is held, women and youth steer judgment through literacy workshops, and a repayment plan is negotiated. The judgment is registered on a solar tablet and feeds into the district registry, tracing through property deeds and e‑Tazkiras. A party aggrieved initiates a formal appeal, starting at the provincial court and going all the way to the Supreme Court with credible documentation. Its decision subsequently becomes part of the literacy schoolbooks. Such a system takes tradition into documentation, democracy into custom, and inclusion into governance, connecting village-based justice connect with national legal architecture.
Our Perspective: Drawing from Proven Approaches
Our paper synthesizes proven advances, existing in the real world, into a unified vision consistent with the legal and cultural dynamics in Afghanistan. The 2010 M-Jirga pilot, which was reported on in Wired, proved that mobile phone conferencing can surprisingly galvanize traditional leaders and government representatives to settle disagreements from a distance. By not formally documenting results, the experiment demonstrated that communal structures are flexible and technology can be integrated into them (“Can Cellphones Bring Justice…”).
At the same time, literacy programs in provinces such as Logar and Herat, supported by UNESCO, have helped over 25,000 girls and women acquire skills in reading, writing and accounting, key skills that allow informed engagement in communal justice and civic life. A tailor named Bi Bi described how literacy allowed her to handle order receipts on her own, showing how education can be immediately reflected in economic and social power (UNESCO).
To this, openDemocracy reported on Pakistan’s Muslahathi Committees, mixed reconciliation mechanisms that include both police and elders, who institutionalized processes and brought in women’s voices without abandoning cultural legitimacy (“The Jirga in modern day Afghanistan”). Others, such as Women for Afghan Women, have offered legal advice, even under Islamic codes, to women desiring divorce or demanding rights, demonstrating how rights-awareness can support legal empowerment even in customary systems (Women for Afghan Women).
Individually, each of these programs- mobile justice, literacy, hybrid justice committees, and rights-based legal aid- works. The contribution of our paper lies in combining them into one ecosystem- think of community verdicts being entered through an SMS kiosk, being examined by literate women and youth, and thereafter stored with code for appeal to the Supreme Court, under Article 121 of the 2004 Constitution. Combining them brings informal justice into being a permanent civic infrastructure, legally legitimated, administratively resilient, and socially participatory.
By combining tradition with technological familiarity, documentation for permanence, and rights awareness for clarity, this justice system renews hope while adhering to constitutional law. It presents a pathway for grassroots justice to become legally grounded, for government institutions to become legitimate, and for citizens, particularly women and youth, to become empowered. This is the vision our paper puts forward- not disintegration, but a coherent, context-specific reconstruction of justice, collaboratively authored through recorded efforts and informed by the desire for an optimistic, pluralistic Afghanistan
A Constitution Without a Government? Imagining a ‘Living Legal Framework’ for the Afghan People
Imagine a constitution not crafted in a capital city or at a foreign negotiation table, but that came instead from the grassroots of society. The monarchy, republic, or Taliban rule of Afghanistan’s imposed constitutions have not managed to disrupt daily civic life completely. Afghans began envisioning a new, living legal framework, one that is built around shared agreement rather than control. This would not come from Kabul, but rather from the courtyards of Afghan homes. This describes a constitution devoid of a centralized government, emerging instead from village declarations, community values, and evolving common laws. These would then be gradually woven into a unified framework by the provincial legal councils and documented not as one definitive text, but as a dynamic corpus of norms. This approach may sound utopian, but in a context of a country that has undergone multiple collapses of the central state and constitutions which have lost their functional value, a slow, ground-up constitutional process may be the only way to foster a tangible connection to the law. Rebecca Gang notes that it is commonly estimated that 80 to 90 per cent of dispute resolution in Afghanistan is currently conducted through community-based processes. Previous research has shown broad trends in the way dispute resolution is practiced at the community level and why it is prioritised, including an emphasis on peace-building and community stability, and factors such as speed, efficiency, minimal expense, and a preference for local autonomy. (AREU 2)
This people’s constitution wouldn’t be an abstract document. It could begin as local justice codes stored in kiosks, circulated via mobile networks, and cross-referenced by paralegals. It could evolve organically, responding to local shifts and contradictions, while eventually converging into a broader, flexible Afghan legal charter. What matters is not a fixed text but its capacity to live and adapt.
Hope in the Gaps: How Absence of the State Is Creating Space for Local Innovation
The collapse of state structures paradoxically creates a void which permits Afghans to investigate more resilient and inclusive justice systems. New grassroots models emerge without state interference: mobile mediation camps operate across provinces while women’s jirgas settle family disputes in private courtyards, and diasporic legal help lines link overseas lawyers to families dealing with domestic land issues.
Take the example of the M-Jirga pilot in 2010, it was composed of “informal” leaders — local or provincial bigwigs, for instance — linked on the calls to government agencies who enforced the decisions. Wired reported that “some people are even working on creating an SMS program where Afghans could text their grievances to the M-Jirga down the road”(Wired, 2010, pg. 1). Similarly, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting documented a dispute over land ownership between two families in Arghandab that went on for 20 years, “Both sides sustained casualties as a result” said Abdul Bari. “When they referred the issue to scholars and tribal elders, a jirga was convened. We made a decision that both sides were happy with. Both families now live calm and contented lives on their properties.”(IWPR, 2025).
Diaspora legal initiatives could take the form of Telegram or messaging platforms where Afghan legal scholars and students offer advice tailored to the unique customs and laws of different provinces. Projects like these would not only provide much-needed support but could also help connect scattered communities, creating a thread of legal continuity even in exile. What we are seeing is a shift: from survival to strategy. From makeshift resolutions to semi-formal innovations, these informal systems are not only filling a governance void but also experimenting with what justice could mean beyond the courtroom. They are not waiting for a state; instead they are becoming one.
Justice Across Borders: Building Legal Pathways from Afar
Even as Afghan institutions collapse, Afghan identity persists across oceans. In fact, they’ve started building it themselves. From legal help lines over WhatsApp to Zoom mediation sessions between relatives in different countries, these efforts aren’t just temporary fixes for displaced families. They’re becoming something deeper: simple, practical models of how justice might work when it grows from relationships, not regimes. They’re aiming to shape a future legal system that is flexible, people-first and grounded in trust rather than territorial control.
A group of Afghan law students in India, for example, created a Telegram channel offering live legal advice for divorce and property disputes under both the Afghan civil code and sharia, tailored to the caller’s province of origin (IWPR 2025). Their approach doesn’t assume universality but recognizes regional diversity. These legal hybrids maintain cultural continuity while expanding procedural fairness.
Consider the story of Zohra, a refugee living in the United States. For years, she endured an abusive marriage, trapped in a cycle of fear and isolation. Her husband’s control was all-encompassing—financially, emotionally, and physically. He did not allow Zohra to work, limited her access to money, and often told her she was worthless. The emotional abuse cut as deep as the physical abuse, leaving her with a shattered sense of self-worth. Today, Zohra is thriving. She has a steady job, a home, and is fully engaged in her children’s lives, providing them with the love, stability, and safety they deserve. (Women for Afghan Women, 2024).
Could these efforts offer a way forward for justice back home in Afghanistan? These efforts show that legal belonging need not be tied to broken government buildings or outdated ministries. It can grow in unexpected places, like in someone’s living room or over a late-night Zoom call. Even far from Afghanistan, people are still finding ways to solve problems and imagine something better for the future.
Women Between Silence and Strategy: Carving Agency in Custom
One of the hardest truths about Afghanistan’s justice collapse is that the people who are most vulnerable, especially women and girls, have often found the most creative ways to keep justice alive. Even though the Taliban enforces strict controls over what women can do, their voices have not disappeared. Instead, they have adapted. Women have found new ways to seek justice quietly, often through informal systems that feel safer and more familiar.
In places like Bamiyan, women have started their own jirgas. While these are not official courts, they are slowly gaining respect in their communities. With guidance from female elders and midwives, these gatherings help resolve family disputes in ways that are rooted in compassion and care. These assemblies operate on the margins but wield deep moral authority in their villages. One such jirga, for instance, ruled against a forced marriage and helped relocate the girl with a host family, despite the risk of Taliban reprisals (Human Rights Watch, 2024).
Such acts aren’t just resistance, but they are quiet strategies of survival. In other cases, women have turned to online literacy networks to decode legal texts and empower their arguments. In Herat, an all-female WhatsApp group shared translated excerpts from the 2004 Constitution, allowing members to cite Article 22 on gender equality in local negotiations (UNESCO, 2023).
None of these efforts are formally recognized. Yet, they are reshaping what justice means on the ground. Not by breaking custom, but by repurposing it. As one organizer from Logar said:
“We don’t argue against Islam, we argue within it, using rights our mothers didn’t know they had” (openDemocracy, 2024).
These women-centered forums also raise deeper questions. The future Afghan legal system must find ways to include these voices, not as rare exceptions but as a central part of how justice is imagined. A powerful vision emerges when we picture a constitution that begins in the courtyard of a girls’ school rather than in a donor conference hall in Doha.
Conclusion: Holding On to Hope in Uncertain Times
We understand how ambitious, even implausible, these proposals might seem in today’s Afghanistan. The Taliban’s treatment of women, suppression of dissent, and erasure of civic space are chilling realities. The prospect of constitutional renewal, legal pluralism, or diaspora feedback loops may appear distant. Yet, it is in this very darkness that the need for hope feels most urgent.
Russia’s formal recognition of the Taliban government in May 2024 marked a geopolitical shift—one that lends superficial legitimacy to a regime still systematically denying rights, particularly for women (Human Rights Watch, 2024). But international recognition does not equal domestic justice. As we are trying to show in this paper, legitimacy in Afghanistan has never been derived purely from global agreements or centralized states. It has always emerged from within its community, through people, relationships, and group discussions.
Whether it is through solar kiosks recording local decisions, women gathering to learn and share their legal rights, or family members reaching out across borders for help over text, the idea of Afghan justice is still alive. Even in the quietest corners of collapse, people continue to imagine a better way forward. The road ahead is not easy. There are obstacles at every step. But it is still a road. And if justice needs to begin in dusty fields, in someone’s backyard, or over an unstable internet connection, then that is where it will begin. We do not offer this paper as a final answer. Instead, we offer it as an invitation to think differently. To see justice not just as something handed down by governments, but as something built by people, day by day, from the ground up. Because even when there is silence, even when there is exile, Afghans are still finding ways to speak.
Works Cited
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“From Normative Pluralism to a Unified Legal System in Afghanistan?” Asian Journal of Law and Society, Cambridge, 2024. cambridge.org
Ibrahim, Fazal Hadi F. A., and Ainul Jaria Maidin. “Jirga in Afghanistan: Its Functions, Contemporary Challenges, and Future Prospects.” IIUM Law Journal, vol. 32, no. 2, 2025, pp. 45–67. journals.iium.edu.my
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“Jirga and Dispute Resolution in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: A Critical Analysis.” ResearchGate 2023. en.wikipedia.org+15c-r.org+15journals.iium.edu.my+15
Periodic Supreme Court constitutional context: Article 121 of 2004 Constitution, discussed in “Laws of Afghanistan.” Northwestern Law Scholarly Commons
“Community-Based Dispute Resolution Processes in Kabul City” Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) Case Study Series, Rebecca Gang 2011 https://www.refworld.org/en/download/78198
“How Fair Is Traditional Justice in Afghanistan?” Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR), 2025. https://iwpr.net/global-voices/how-fair-traditional-justice-afghanistan
“Women’s Rights in Afghanistan: We Have the Promises of the World.” Human Rights Watch, 2009 and 2024. https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/12/06/we-have-promises-world/womens-rights-afghanistan (Referenced in Section 7 and Conclusion, pg. 3–4)
“Girls’ Literacy in Herat and Logar: A New Generation Reads the Law.” UNESCO, 2023. https://unesco.org/projects/afghanistan-girls-education-2023 (Referenced in Section 7, pg. 2)
“The Jirga in Modern Day Afghanistan.” openDemocracy, 2024. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/jirga-afghanistan-legal-rights-customary (Referenced in Section 7, pg. 2)
“Women for Afghan Women Annual Report.” WAW, 2024. https://womenforafghanwomen.org/2024-report (Referenced in Sections 5 and 6, pg. 2)
“Russia Becomes First Country to Recognize Taliban as Afghanistan’s Legitimate Government.” Human Rights Watch, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/28/russia-recognizes-taliban-afghanistan (Referenced in Conclusion, pg. 4)
