In response to comments made by newly elected President Ashraf Ghani during his inauguration speech regarding corruption in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court met on Tuesday and released a statement suggesting the president was misinformed if he thought there was a corruption issue in the judiciary.
The Afghan judiciary was ranked as the number one most corrupt in the world by Transparency International's perception survey in 2013. President Ghani has said one of his priorities will be tackling the problem of corruption in Afghanistan.
"Unfortunately there are accusations of corruption in the judiciary system and the existence of corruption will open the path for insecurity in the country," President Ghani said in his speech on Monday. "I kindly request the Supreme Court to review all employees of the courts based on a system of punishment and rewards," he added.
But following their meeting on Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected the president's insinuation that the judiciary faced corruption issues, asserting instead that Ghani is simply misinformed. The Court officials said there could have been discussions and coordination with the president beforehand, but unfortunately it wasn't done that way.
Meanwhile, civil society activists and political commentators have spoken out in support of President Ghani's concerns regarding corruption in the judiciary.
Civil society activist Aziz Rafi believes there is corruption in the judiciary system as there is in the legislature and other branches of government too. "No government department should say that they are not involved in corruption," he told TOLOnews.
Political analyst Khalil Rooman said he hoped the new government would find support in its crusade against corruption. "There is corruption in the judicial system and people know a lot of stories of corruption in the judiciary departments," he said. "I want them to support the new government and not hide the truth."
President Ghani has said that anti-corruption will be a major focus for his administration early on, and lent credibility to those claims on Wednesday when he published a decree ordering the Supreme Court to launch a new investigation into the notorious, now three-year-old Kabul Bank case.
