Afghanistan: Taliban to Briefly Adopt 'Monarchy Constitution' but With Changes

Those provisions of the Constitution that are in conflict with the Sharia law will be discarded, the Taliban said.

The Taliban has adopted a Constitution that permits women the right to vote, but with certain amendments.

(Photo: The Quint)

Militant organisation Taliban on Tuesday, 28 September, announced that it will be temporarily adopting the 1964 Constitution, belonging to a period when constitutional monarchy prevailed in Afghanistan, but with certain amendments.

The constitution, ratified during the period when King Mohammed Zahir Shah ruled Afghanistan, had, for the first time in the country's history, permitted women the right to vote.

"The Islamic Emirate will adopt the constitution of the former King Mohammad Zahir Shah's time for a temporary period," Taliban's acting justice minister Mawlavi Abdul Hakim Sharaee stated, news agency AFP reported.

Those provisions of the Constitution that are in contradiction with the Sharia law will not be followed, he further noted.

The announcement comes weeks after the 'acting' Taliban government was unveiled on 7 September. The all-male Cabinet will dispense the Sharia law, the hardliner organisation had indicated, augmenting public concern about women's freedom under the new reign.

On 27 September, the Taliban Chancellor of Kabul University, Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat, had made a public statement banning women from working at or attending universities till the time "real Islamic environment is not provided for all." He claimed to have put "Islam first" by doing so.