The tribunal, set up to hear complaints over alleged fraud in last year’s parliamentary elections, ruled on Thursday that 62 members of Parliament (MPs) should have their victories overturned and be swapped with losing candidates.

But Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC), which would be in charge of implementing any such move, said it strongly disagreed with the ruling by the court, whose legitimacy it does not recognize.

Some analysts accuse Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who ordered the setting up of the special tribunal, of using it to try and boost the number of his supporters in Afghanistan’s lower house of Parliament, the Wolesi Jirga.

“Making changes in the election results... and particularly after the inauguration of Parliament is in no-one’s authority and is against the country’s laws,” the IEC said.

“The commission stands by its previous stance and no pressure or illegal actions would force it to step back from its decision.”

The Wolesi Jirga was inaugurated in January after long delays amid a standoff between Karzai and lawmakers over the fraud claims.

But now that the special tribunal has delivered its ruling after months of deliberation, deep public splits have again surfaced in Afghanistan’s political system. On Saturday, Afghanistan’s Parliament passed a vote of no confidence in the country’s chief justice and five other members of the Supreme Court following Thursday’s announcement by the special tribunal.

Meanwhile, an eight-year-old Afghan girl was killed when a bag of explosives given to her by Taleban insurgents exploded as she approached a police outpost in southern Afghanistan, the government said on Sunday.

“The insurgents handed over a bag with a homemade bomb to an eight-year-old girl and asked her to take it to police forces,” the Ministry of Interior said.

“As the girl was getting close to the police, it exploded and killed the girl.” There have been occasional cases of insurgents using female bombers — or more commonly of fighters dressing as women in head-to-toe burqa coverings — but the use of children had been almost unheard of until recently.

In May, Afghan police paraded four boys, all under 13, they said had been recruited as bombers from their homes in neighboring Pakistan. One of the boys said they had been told they would live through the suicide attacks.

The Taleban later denied they were recruiting children to carry out suicide attacks.

The latest incident took place in the Char Chino district of Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan. There were no police casualties.

A suicide car bomber killed at least 20 people, and possibly as many as 35, in an attack at a hospital in a remote district of the eastern Logar province on Saturday that damaged the hospital’s maternity ward.

Military and civilian casualties hit record levels in 2010, the most violent year of the war since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taleban in late 2001.

This year is following a similar trend, with violence growing across Afghanistan since the Taleban announced a spring offensive at the beginning of May.

It is also a worrying sign as Afghans prepare to take over security responsibility from NATO-led troops in seven areas across the country next month.

That will coincide with the start in July of a gradual drawdown of US troops. US and NATO troops plan to hand over security responsibility for all of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, although critics warn the handover date is premature.