The second vice president Mohamad Sarwar Danish and the justice minister Abdul Basir Anwar introduced the amended Penal Code of Afghanistan at a ceremony on Saturday.

Work on the amendment of the Penal Code started six years ago.  

The amended version of the Penal Code is in two books, 16 sections and 916 Articles.

The second vice president said the amended version of the Penal Code is better than the codes of regional countries and even better than France. 

He said a big change has happened in the structure and content of rule of law in Afghanistan.

“If you see the penal codes in other countries including neighboring countries, they would not have such a thing. They are also faced with this dispersal.

Even France does not have the penal code that we have today,” he said. 

The justice minister said the code includes all norms and dimensions required in this sector. 

“I ask the Almighty Allah to make the law as a tool for ensuring justice and rule of law in the country and eliminate injustice, discrimination, land grabbing, kidnapping, poppy cultivation and all kinds of crimes and mafia activities,” he said.

The amendments include:

Minimum imprisonment has increased to three months from 24 hours in the previous code. 

Meanwhile, cybercrimes, corruption crimes, environment crimes and election-related crimes are the new sections added to the amended Penal Code.

“The law amendment group has started many activities which will ease the activities of courts and other judicial organizations,” said Mohammad Ashraf Rasuli, head of the law amendment group.

International documents such as conventions, penal codes from Iran, France, Turkey, Germany, Morocco, Egypt, Monaco and Malaysia have been referred to due to their relevance to Afghanistan’s Penal Code.

The first Penal Code was drafted in 1976.