Abdul Salam Azimi
Abdul Salam Azimi (Pashtu:عبدالسلام عظیمی (born: 1936, in Farah Province

Farah Province

Farah is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. It is in the southwest of the country. Its capital is Farah. Farah is a spacious and sparsely populated province that lies on the Iranian border...

) is the Chief Justice of Afghanistan

Chief Justice of Afghanistan

The Chief Justice of Afghanistan is the head of the Afghan Supreme Court. The incumbent chief justice is Abdul Salam Azimi.-List of Chief Justices, 2001-present:*Faisal Ahmad Shinwari , was member of the Islamic Dawah Organisation of Afghanistan...

 and, as such, the head of the Afghan Supreme Court

Afghan Supreme Court

Stera Mahkama or the Afghan Supreme Court is the court of last resort in Afghanistan. It was created by the Constitution of Afghanistan, which was approved on January 4, 2004...

 since May 2006.

A former professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 at the University of Nebraska at Omaha

University of Nebraska at Omaha

The University of Nebraska at Omaha is a four-year state university located in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. Founded in 1908 as Omaha University, the institution became the public Municipal University of Omaha in 1931. It assumed its current name in 1968 following a merger into the University...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Azimi served as legal advisor to Afghan President

President of Afghanistan

Afghanistan has only been a republic between 1973 and 1992 and from 2001 onwards. Before 1973, it was a monarchy that was governed by a variety of kings, emirs or shahs...

 Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...

 and assisted with writing the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan

Constitution of Afghanistan

The Constitution of Afghanistan is the supreme law of the state Afghanistan, which serves as the legal framework between the Afghan government and the Afghan citizens...

. He is an ethnic Pashtun

Pashtun people

Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...

 of the Alizai tribe.

As chief justice, Azimi replaced Faisal Ahmad Shinwari

Faisal Ahmad Shinwari

Faisal Ahmad Shinwari or Fazal Hadi Shinwari was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan from 2001 until 2006. He was appointed to the post by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in accordance with the Afghan Constitution approved after the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government...

, a conservative Islamic cleric with no higher education. Azimi, in contrast, is reported to have gained a reputation as a fair-minded moderate active in upholding the rule of law

Rule of law

The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...

and improving the country's dilapidated legal system.

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