A judicial regulation signed by the leadership of the Islamic Emirate in 2026 institutionalizes a penal hierarchy based on social status. The text establishes differentiated levels of punishment according to class, granting virtual immunity to upper strata while enabling physical coercion for lower sectors. Afghan organizations and international legal centers warn that the document violates basic principles of equality before the law and consolidates a system of selective repression.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan circulated in January 2026 a new body of regulations for its courts, described in various sources as a Criminal Procedure Code for the Courts or as a criminal code for judicial application. The text, signed by the Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, consists of more than one hundred articles and regulates both procedural aspects and substantive provisions of punishment. Its most controversial element is not technical but structural: it explicitly divides society into social categories and links the level of sanction to the place each person occupies within that hierarchy.
According to content analyzed by independent Afghan media in exile and by international academic centers specializing in Afghanistan, the document classifies the population into four strata: ulema or high-ranking religious figures, elites or social notables, middle class, and lower or subordinate class. This categorization is not merely descriptive. The article concerning discretionary sanctions, known as ta’zir, assigns a distinct punitive regime to each category.
For religious authorities and persons of first rank, the sanction essentially consists of warnings or moral exhortations. In the case of elites, the punishment may involve a formal admonition or judicial summons. The middle class may face summons and imprisonment. By contrast, for the lower class the text authorizes threats, beatings, and the possibility of corporal punishment, including flogging within the limits set by the regulation itself.
This normative design establishes an openly unequal justice system. The severity of punishment depends not only on the act committed but on the social status of the accused. The principle of equality before the law—enshrined in international human rights law and recognized in instruments such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—is subordinated to a hierarchical conception of society in which legal dignity is not uniform.
Afghan human rights organizations have pointed out that the document expands judicial discretion and reduces procedural guarantees. Among the criticized aspects are the centrality of confession as a means of proof, the weakness of the right to independent legal defense, and the broad scope given to judges to apply corporal sanctions under the category of discretionary punishments. International legal analysts have warned that institutionalizing a stratified penal system erodes the very notion of the rule of law and normalizes discrimination based on social origin.
Concern is not limited to theory. Afghan media have already reported prison sentences combined with flogging in cases linked to alleged offenses against authorities or the moral order imposed by the Emirate. The legal framework approved in 2026 provides the normative basis for such decisions to be carried out with formal backing.
From a political perspective, the code consolidates a power architecture in which religious authority and elites aligned with the regime are shielded from severe sanctions, while the most vulnerable sectors bear the weight of physical coercion. In a society marked by decades of conflict and structural poverty, this differentiation is not neutral: it crystallizes existing inequalities and transforms them into legal rule.
International reaction has been critical. Research centers specializing in gender and transitional justice have emphasized that the system contradicts minimum standards of proportionality and non-discrimination. Afghan organizations in exile argue that the new code reinforces a model of social control that combines religious legitimization with selective corporal discipline.
Added to these structural injustices, the text maintains provisions that further aggravate the vulnerability of women. In matters of domestic violence, a husband’s aggression is considered criminally relevant only if it produces serious visible injuries, such as fractures or evident bruises that the woman can demonstrate before the court. Even in such cases, the maximum penalty for the aggressor may be limited to fifteen days of imprisonment. Assaults that leave no demonstrable marks, as well as psychological violence or sustained coercion, remain in practice outside the scope of criminal prosecution. Likewise, the code contemplates sanctions against women who leave the marital home without the husband’s consent and establishes restrictions that hinder their autonomous access to justice.
The result is a normative framework in which inequality is not a collateral consequence but an organizing principle. The new Taliban criminal code not only redefines judicial procedures; it formalizes a conception of society divided into moral and social categories with unequal rights. In that framework, justice ceases to be universal and becomes an instrument of stratification.
