Afghanistan's Agenda for Action - Economic Growth - usaid

Afghanistan’s Agenda for Action: Developing the Trade and Business Environment – August 2007COMPETITION LAW AND POLICYNo. Type Recommendation Priority Duration5. Legal development Close and quantified monitoring of industry sectors until such time as a Competition Lawregime should be called for by a broad cross-section of businesses, academics, governmentofficials, and would-be investors. At that point, Competition Law should be introduced only inthe sectors where it can quantifiably be shown to be required, and then only to the extentnecessary to correct palpable deficiencies in that market.Medium Long termCOMMERICAL DISPUTE RESOLUTIONNo. Type Recommendation Priority Duration1. Education and The legal professional lacks an adequate supply of legally-educated practitioners, including High Long termtraining/Institutionaldevelopment andcapacity buildingattorneys and judges. Efforts to bolster legal education should be supported, including lawschools, judicial training centers, etc. This education should include specific and targetededucation on commercial law. Relatedly, a bar association is needed to support such effortsas well in order to bolster the legal profession in general.2. Institutional reform There is a need to increase staffing at primary courts to alleviate the need for courts ofappeals to also act as courts of first instance. Efforts to reform both administrative andappellate practice should be supported.Medium Medium term3. Legal reform Legal limitations on arbitration, while often not enforced, should be removed from the law toavoid future conflict between accepted practice and the law on the books.4. Institutional reform The length of legal proceedings are unreasonable, and as a result do not provide fairand capacity building protection of a party’s economic interests. Delays exist throughout the system, from basicfunctions of court administration to execution of judgments, for reasons including rentseekingbehavior, administrative inefficiencies and lack of education. The Supreme Courtneeds to continue and expand its work in carefully establishing internal strategies, goals,procedures and regulations for the ongoing permanent professionalization of the courts,judges, clerks and administrators. Ongoing reform efforts in this regard must be supported.5. Institutional reform The fee structure for bringing claims is inappropriate and will need to be amended soonerrather than later. Fees are not based on the costs of the services rendered and are onlyassessed at judgment. If the parties withdraw a case before completion, fees will likely not bepaid, or if paid, will only be so after a period of years. The courts cannot effectively predictbudgetary needs based on this system of contingent fees assessed against unknown futureawards. At the same time, the percentage based accounting creates inappropriate incentivesfor the courts to award higher fees to make up for shortfalls in budgetary resources. All ofthese factors serve to discourage legitimate use of the judiciary.MediumHighMediumShort termLong termLong term147