A Study of the Interplay between Sharia and Law in Iran’s Criminal Policy

Abstract

The present article seeks to answer questions on the main challenges in how Shariah and law interact in shaping and transforming Iran's criminal policy and also which of the judicial penal policy governing Islamic penal law is more in line with the global or Islamic standards. To achieve the aim, the most important factors of tension between changeable Sharia punishments and human rights norms in Iranian criminal policy must be recognized. Thus, a study was conducted on recent major changes of Legislative Criminal Policy (The Islamic Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and several recent major criminal laws) by measuring the dominant discourse on punishment. Moreover, the article explains the translationalism of jurisprudence and the crude injection of jurisprudence into Iranian criminal law, and the confusion about how to adopt from Western’s law of advanced trade, and the lack of support for the implementation of new criminal facilities, are the most significant challenges. As the jurisdictional penal policy of Islamic penal law is based on the doctrines of Islamic teachings, and to the extent acceptable and not favorable. It complies with some of the universal criteria of criminal law for the protection of human rights. Furthermore, the persistence of implementation of corporal punishment and ineffective execution and imprisonment, the continuation of criminal retributivism disproportionate to the individualization of the criminal and the bottlenecks of the offender and society, and the slow transition from virtuous retributivism to effective retributivism are of the most common causes of tension in the changing Sharia punishments with human rights norms.