Summerside lawyer heading to Kabul
Last Updated: Wednesday, November 1, 2006 | 1:28 PM ET
CBC News
A public defender in Summerside [Prince Edward Island, Canada] is leaving for Afghanistan next week to join an international team mentoring lawyers there.
'We're not encouraged to leave the compound where we're living without a driver.'— Trish Cheverie
"The International Legal Foundation is charged with developing an independent, functioning legal-aid program in Afghanistan," said Trish Cheverie, "starting in Kabul and hopefully branching out to the provinces."
The ILF is a not-for profit public defender organization based in New York. Its involvement in Afghanistan began in 2000, working with refugees from the Afghan legal community in Pakistan.
Compared just to the Canadian Criminal Code (left), Trish Cheverie finds the full body of Afghan law (right) a bit light.
(Steve d'Souza/CBC)
Cheverie has been studying Afghan law in preparation for her trip, and is finding it relatively light reading compared with Canadian law. The constitution, the criminal code, the highway traffic act, the narcotics code and the juvenile code don't quite fill a large binder.
Cheverie will spend three months working with lawyers in the Afghan capital.
"This is really talking about basic human rights and trying to ensure that a whole population, for perhaps the very first time in a long time, has access to basic human rights," Cheverie said.
A dangerous place
Afghanistan has proven to be a dangerous place for Canadians: forty-two Canadians have died there. But the worst of the fighting is in the south; Kabul, in the east, is relatively safe. Still, Cheverie is being instructed to take precautions.
'[Kabul] was filled with birds. That's no longer the case …'— Trish Cheverie