Abdul Salam Azimi (born 1936 in

Farah Province Farah (Pashto :فرَاه /) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the southwestern part of the country on the border with Iran. It is a spacious and sparsely populated province, divided into eleven Districts of Afghanistan, dist ...

) is an Afghan former judge who was the Chief Justice of Afghanistan and, as such, the head of the Afghan Supreme Court from August 2006 to October 2014, when he resigned his position. A former

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the

University of Nebraska Omaha The University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) is a public research university in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Founded in 1908 by faculty from the Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary as a private non-sectarian college, the university was origin ...

(UNO) in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, Azimi served as legal advisor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and assisted with writing the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan. He is an ethnic

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...

of the Alizai tribe. Prior to the Soviet Invasion of 1979, Azimi and his family resided in the Kabul province of Afghanistan and were forced to flee the country in 1989 after the fall of the Communist regime and the resulting civil war. Azimi has three daughters and three sons, one being Abdul Ghafar Azimi who studied in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

and graduated from the UNO, and another is Hanan Azimi, who also studied at the UNO, and is a respected teacher in the Omaha area. As chief justice, Azimi replaced Faisal Ahmad Shinwari, a conservative Islamic cleric who lacked higher education. Azimi, by contrast, gained a reputation as a fair-minded moderate active in upholding the

rule of law The essence of the rule of law is that all people and institutions within a Body politic, political body are subject to the same laws. This concept is sometimes stated simply as "no one is above the law" or "all are equal before the law". Acco ...

and improving the country's dilapidated legal system.

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Biography of Abdul Salam Azimi
University of Nebraska Omaha faculty 1936 births People from Farah Province Afghan Sunni Muslims Living people Pashtun judges Supreme Court justices of Afghanistan Al-Azhar University alumni {{Afghanistan-bio-stub

See also

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