Draft:Rangin Dadfar Spanta
| Rangin Dadfar Spanta | |
|---|---|
| File:Dadfar1.jpg | |
| Name | Rangin Dadfar Spanta |
| Personal Details | |
| Birth Place | Herat, Afghanistan |
Rangin Dadfar Spanta (also spelled Spenta) was the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Security Advisor of Afghanistan.
Biography
Rangin Dadfar Spanta was born on 15 December 1953 in Krush District, Herat Province, Afghanistan.
Education in Afghanistan
He completed his primary and secondary education in the city of Herat and then entered Kabul University in mid-1970.
Education in Turkey
Spanta holds a university degree in International Relations from Turkey.
Migration to Germany
Following the occupation of his country by the former Soviet Union in 1982, he migrated to Germany.
In Germany, he continued his studies in Political Science and International Relations and from 1992 to 2002, he began teaching as a professor at Aachen University in Germany. He was also responsible for the Institute for Third World Studies at Aachen University in Germany.
Rangin Dadfar Spanta was known as an analyst of Afghan political issues in the Western press, especially BBC Persian Radio, during the years of the Taliban government in Afghanistan and the years following it, until 2005.
Return to Afghanistan
In 2005, he returned to his country as a visiting professor to teach at Kabul University and then became an international affairs advisor to President Hamid Karzai.
Ministry
Hamid Karzai introduced Spanta to the parliament as Minister of Foreign Affairs in his new cabinet formed in 2006[1] and Mr. Spanta was able to become the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of this country to start work with the parliament's vote of confidence by obtaining the vote of confidence of the Afghanistan House of Representatives.
Spanta holds German-Afghan dual citizenship and one of the conditions of the Afghanistan parliament representatives for giving him a vote of confidence was renouncing German citizenship. He accepted this condition, but according to parliament representatives, he has not yet submitted documents of renunciation of his citizenship.
Impeachment
Spanta was impeached by the Afghanistan House of Representatives on 10 May 2007 due to what was called weakness in preventing the expulsion of Afghan migrants from Iran. 124 representatives voted against him, which was one vote less than the quorum required for withdrawal of confidence. However, some representatives claimed that one ballot paper was positive but was declared invalid. Two days later, the House of Representatives put the ballot box for his impeachment for the second time and gave 141 negative votes. However, Hamid Karzai, the President, considered this decision contrary to the Constitution and the Internal Rules of Procedure of the House of Representatives and officially requested the opinion of the Supreme Court of the Country. After two weeks, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, because firstly, there was no valid reason for the impeachment of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and this impeachment was considered contrary to the country's Constitution, and secondly, the second vote of the House of Representatives for impeachment was illegal and invalid; because in the first instance, the opposing representatives could not reach the quorum for the vote of no confidence. The Internal Rules of Procedure of the House of Representatives prohibits the second vote.
Despite the decision of the Supreme Court, the House of Representatives did not deviate from its position and said that it does not recognize the Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, Spanta practically worked as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan.
The decision of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan caused the enthusiasm of the House of Representatives for impeaching ministers to decrease, and from then on, the House of Representatives has always sought valid reasons before requesting impeachment[2].