May/15/2017
The First Book of the Penal Code of Afghanistan 2017 has been ratified by the Cabinet and the House of Elders of the Parliament, endorsed by the President in his Decree No. 256 and is now published in the Official Gazette No. 1260 dated 15 May 2017. The new Penal Code will come into force in nine months after its publication in the Official Gazette. The Penal Code of Afghanistan 2017 codifies all the criminal laws into one collection, as currently there exist various criminal laws that make it difficult at times for the legal community to appropriately refer to provisions of the law. With the new Penal Code in place, the emergence of new crimes is adequately addressed and more importantly Afghanistan’s obligation under international treaties, to which Afghanistan is a party, is met to a more satisfactory extent. One significant modification in the criminal laws is that the new law better regulates the punishment for minor crimes with consistently providing alternatives to imprisonment, such as fines.
