The various codes of law are so numerous that they would fill at least a dozen bulky volumes. Every official, the holders of all offices, great or small, in Afghanistan has a manual signed or sealed by the Amir, on which he acts. Instructions are so minute, moreover, that it is a common saying in Afghanistan that there is not a donkey-driver in the country who does not possess a signature of the Amir to some document, giving him the law which he is to obey. All classes are amenable to the law, and in theory there is no exemption or special laws—not even for the nearest relatives of the Amir, as was once proved when a favourite wife of the late Abdur Rahman was ordered by him to answer in the courts to the summons of a firm of Parsee milliners. Judicial corruption, however, makes evasion of the law neither difficult nor infrequent, and bribery is the cause of a general miscarriage of justice.
The condition of the Criminal Law is singularly barbarous; and no attempt, even upon paper or in theory, has been made to mitigate its crude severity. There is no fixed limit for the various punishments, and, although sentences of death need to be confirmed by the Amir, torture is invariably applied in all cases of criminal procedure. The instrument more generally used is known as the Fanah, a contrivance not unlike the “boot.” There are many things in the Afghan code which are susceptible of improvement for the whim of the Amir is law, and, at best, he is no better than an amiable despot whose caprice demands immediate realisation. In this, Afghanistan is far removed from the condition of the native States of India and the territories of Bokhara, where, if justice is also tempered with bribery and corruption, life is at least respected until the innocent are proved to be guilty. Not so in the Amir’s country, where men are still blown from guns and penalties of equal brutality exacted for comparatively trivial offences.
Illustrations of the harshness of the law abound in Kabul itself. It is a common spectacle to see prisoners, their ankles encircled by steel bands, which are connected by a rod to a chain round their waists, sitting by the wayside asking alms of passers-by. Under the conditions which prevail in the Kabul prisons, unless the inmates have money or friends who will interest themselves in their plight, they are thrown upon the charity of the public for their means of subsistence. Government provides nothing for them but bread and prison quarters, where, chained and under close observation, they lead a life of endless misery. Justice, too, is very slow-footed and expedition is impossible until the officers of the Court, whose duty it is to bring cases-in-waiting to the notice of the judge, have first been bribed. Heavy tolls are levied by all officials for this service and, if the payments are not forthcoming, the trial may never take place or it may be protracted through several years. Even then, when prisoners have been tried, their sentences pronounced and they are at the conclusion of their terms of imprisonment, the rental charges for their use of the prisons have still to be met. The system is iniquitous and imposes upon poor captives the alternative of perpetual slavery, or the necessity to cry for alms in the streets as they go to and from their work. Employment in the workshops, the ordnance yards and upon the Government buildings is the only description of labour with which the prisoners are furnished. In a measure such work is popular among them, as it affords opportunities for discussion with their friends and gives them for a brief space somewhat greater liberty of movement. Their tasks are of the hardest and roughest description, but they have a chance to wash their clothes—even to take a bath in the canal which runs through the factories. Sometimes, too, regular workmen distribute their food among the prisoners or even present them with a few pice. But at all times their fate is terrible and their existence in prison accompanied by extreme privations. Again, if death is the order of their lot, it is impossible to say whether it will be short, sharp and sudden, or something a little lingering like the ends which befel a robber, and an over-zealous student of political affairs, of whom Abdur Rahman made such terrible examples.
The robber, the leader of a band of brigands whose exploits and activity had won for the Lata Bund Devan an unenviable notoriety, was captured by the police after many attempts, and repeated warnings. The Amir, who had become exasperated at the robberies of the band, determined to make a fitting example of their leader. Upon the summit of the Lata Bund Pass, 8000 feet above sea-level, he erected a flag-staff; from this he suspended an iron cage and in the cage he placed the robber—where he left him, as an example! It is said in Kabul that the fate of that highwayman determined the end of the robber band. Certainly, since that day no further crimes of violence have been committed in the pass.
The other was a student who, brought before Abdur Rahman, declared in a state of unrepressed excitement that the Russians were advancing to invade Afghanistan.
“The Russians are coming?” said the Amir with grim deliberation; “then you shall be taken to the summit of yonder tower and shall have no food till you see them arrive.”
The theory of Justice in all Eastern countries aims at punishing some one person for every indictable misdemeanour. In China, in Japan, in Korea and in Africa, too, the autocrat measures the peace of the country-side by the moral effect of his standard of punishment. No crime escapes its levy against the liberty of the subject, although the criminal himself may abscond. A precisely similar state of affairs prevails in Afghanistan where, in the event of the offender escaping, the hostage satisfies the findings of the law. Liberty of movement, therefore, is denied to every one in Kabul beyond a six-mile radius measured from the Kabul police station. For permission to go beyond this point it is necessary to obtain at a cost of three rupees a rahdari or road-pass and to leave Afghanistan without such a pass is punishable with death. In point of fact, facilities are never granted until hostages against the failure of the person to return have been given. In the case of any one venturing to leave Afghanistan and failing to come back, his property is at once confiscated, his family is imprisoned and his more immediate surety is executed. Such a fate befel the family of a soldier who was making a protracted stay in India. Arrested and threatened with execution their release was secured only by the man’s return and surrender, knowing when he did so that he would be blown from a gun on the place of execution. This was ultimately his fate. It is one so constantly meted out to prisoners that, whenever the boom of the gun is heard in Kabul, only those who are of the sternest disposition can suppress the sigh which involuntarily escapes as the mournful sound falls upon the ears. There are, of course, other ways of punishing the guilty than that of blowing them from cannon. Yet the boom of a gun in Kabul only denotes one of three things: the passing of the Amir, the mid-day hour, and the release of a soul to Paradise from the horrors of the Kabul prisons.
In the city of Kabul the Amir does not give the enemies of law and order a chance. The chief magistrate has become an object of public execration and wholesome dread. His spies are believed to be everywhere; and hardly a word can be spoken without its coming to the ears of the Naib Kotwal and through him to the Amir himself. The Kabul police code is curiously elaborate. It forbids evil speaking in the streets. The vituperation of a Said (a reputed descendant of the Prophet Mahommed through his daughter Fatima), of a man of learning or of a civic elder renders the offender liable to twenty lashes and a fine of fifty rupees. If the bad language is only aimed at a common person ten lashes with a fine of ten rupees is the penalty provided. Punishments are also laid down for dishonest tradesmen who cheat with false weights or adulterate the food they sell, for the indecorous bather, the gambler, the purveyor of charms; as also for persons who misbehave in the mosque, forget to say their prayers or to observe a fast day. The man who kisses some one else’s wife receives thirty lashes and is sent to prison for further inquiry.
Careful directions are laid down in regard to administering the lash. The instrument itself is made of three strips of camel, cow and sheep skin, with a handle of olive wood. The stripes are laid on with pious ejaculations and the police officer is exhorted to feel, if he cannot show, sorrow for the wrong-doer, “since Mahommedans are all of one flesh.” Special cognisance is taken of offences against religion. If any free-thinking Kabuli omits to bend his head with due reverence at the hour of prayer the police officer must at first remonstrate gently. If the mild appeal fails, he must use harsh terms, such as “O foolish, O stupid one.” In the event of continued obstinacy the stick is to be applied; and, as a last resource, the Amir is to be informed. He—“will do the rest.”
The departments for the administration of the Government in the provinces are as follows: