The Afghan Constitution Commission (or Afghan Constitutional Commission) was established October 5, 2002 as required by the Bonn Agreement

Bonn Agreement (Afghanistan)

Officially the Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of Permanent Government Institutions, the Bonn Agreement was the initial series of agreements intended to re-create the State of Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in response to the...

, which stipulated that a new Afghan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 constitution

Constitution

A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...

 be adopted by a loya jirga

Loya jirga

A loya jirga is a type of jirga regarded as "grand assembly," a phrase in the Pashto language meaning "grand council." A loya jirga is a mass meeting usually prepared for major events such as choosing a new king, adopting a constitution, or discussing important national political or emergency...

. The loya jirga was required to convene within eighteen months of the establishment of Afghan Transitional Administration

Afghan Transitional Administration

The Afghan Transitional Administration was the name of a temporary administration of Afghanistan put in place by the 2002 Loya Jirga and followed the Afghan Interim Administration which was installed after the Bonn Conference.-Background:Following the US Invasion in Afghanistan, a UN sponsored...

, which was established by the Emergency Loya Jirga

2002 loya jirga

An Emergency "Loya Jirga" was held in Kabul, Afghanistan between 11th and 19th June 2002 to elect a transitional administration in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Emergency Loya Jirga was called for by the Bonn Agreement. The agreement was drawn up in December 2001, in Bonn, Germany...

 in June 2002. After some delay, the proposed Afghan Constitution

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...

 was presented to President 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...

 on November 3, 2003. A loya jirga began December 14, 2003 (four days after schedule) in Kabul

Kabul

Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

 and was endorsed January 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 on May 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

Herat

Herāt is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan...

, Kunduz

Kunduz

Kunduz also known as Kundûz, Qonduz, Qondûz, Konduz, Kondûz, Kondoz, or Qhunduz is a city in northern Afghanistan, the capital of Kunduz Province. It is linked by highways with Mazari Sharif to the west, Kabul to the south and Tajikistan's border to the north...

, Kabul, Gardez, Kandahar

Kandahar

Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...

, Mazar

Mazar

A Mazār is a tomb or mausoleum ; the word deriving from the Arabic verb zāra , 'to visit', whence also comes the noun ziyārah , 'a visit', or 'visiting the tomb of a saint for blessings.'. Though the word is Arabic in origin, it has been borrowed by a number of eastern languages, including Persian...

 and Bamyan as well as in the Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

i cities of Peshawar

Peshawar

Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....

 and Quetta

Quetta

is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...

, and in the Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian cities of Tehran

Tehran

Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...

 and Mashhad

Mashhad

Mashhad , is the second largest city in Iran and one of the holiest cities in the Shia Muslim world. It is also the only major Iranian city with an Arabic name. It is located east of Tehran, at the center of the Razavi Khorasan Province close to the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Its...

.

The process was being monitored by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and was funded by the United Nations Development Programme

United Nations Development Programme

The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...

.

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 the United States

United States

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

 were also said to be consulted. The commission also distributed poster

Poster

A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...

s and leaflets, and a monthly newsletter

Newsletter

A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. Newspapers and leaflets are types of newsletters. Additionally, newsletters delivered electronically via email have gained rapid acceptance for the same reasons email in...

. Radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 and television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 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. On August 28 Ghulam Farooq Wardak announced that the loya jirga had been postponed until December 10. The commission wanted more time to consult with Afghans. Ghulam 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 king Mohammad Zaher Shah, and United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi

Lakhdar Brahimi

Lakhdar Brahimi is a veteran United Nations envoy and advisor. He retired from his duties at the end of 2005. Brahimi is a member of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, the first global initiative to focus specifically on the link between exclusion, poverty and law...

.

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 and Morsal.

Opposition to the Proposed Constitution

Bacha Khan Zadran, a 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...

 warlord in Paktia province

Paktia Province

Paktia , is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, in the east of the country. Its capital is Gardez. The population is predominantly Pashtun.- History:...

, 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, Turkmen

Turkmen people

The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...

s and Baluch

Baloch people

The Baloch or Baluch are an ethnic group that belong to the larger Iranian peoples. Baluch people mainly inhabit the Balochistan region and Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the southeast corner of the Iranian plateau in Western Asia....

 said that the Proposed Constitution alienated their cultures. For example, the draft states that Pashto

Pashto language

Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...

 and Dari

Dari (Eastern Persian)

Dari or Fārsī-ye Darī in historical terms refers to the Persian court language of the Sassanids. In contemporary usage, the term refers to the dialects of modern Persian language spoken in Afghanistan, and hence known as Afghan Persian in some Western sources. It is the term officially recognized...

 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

Mohammed Zahir Shah

Mohammed Zahir Shah was the last King of Afghanistan, reigning for four decades, from 1933 until he was ousted by a coup in 1973...

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

• The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan's website - includes documents on the constitutional process.
• UNHCR document PDF original includes details of the commission's work and initial public opinion, divided by region