According to the rule of law, the necessity of implementing and enforcing laws is essential to the life of a social system. Even thieves and murderers believe in the necessity of enforcing the law and respecting legal rulings, and it is precisely because of this awareness that they feel fear and anxiety when committing a crime. To confirm this statement, one can refer to the principle of accountability of the offender—which is analyzed in criminology—with the notion that the perpetrator of a criminal act, by accepting the legally prescribed punishment, evaluates the punishment mentioned in the law against the pleasure and benefits gained from committing the crime. Based on personal necessities or inner inclinations, if the balance tips in favor of the benefits, the person, while accepting the prescribed punishment, may be inclined to commit the crime.

With that said, what must be considered in critiquing public executions is the psychological and social impact of such actions in a tense society—where every citizen is struggling with numerous problems and is under psychological pressure. In such a society, carrying out capital punishment or qisas al-nafs (retaliatory execution) in public lacks legal legitimacy, especially given that:

According to Article 436 of the Islamic Penal Code, qisas al-nafs is only permissible through conventional methods that inflict the least amount of pain on the killer; and Article 484 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which assigns the implementation of criminal sentences to the prosecutor or the criminal enforcement deputy, is a valid reason to emphasize the need to consider societal conditions—so that the prosecutor, by considering the state of society, oversees the implementation of criminal sentences.

It is worth noting that jurists do not oppose the enforcement of the law and the execution of punishments—even the most severe form of punishment (despite possible objections to the very philosophy of life-taking punishments). However, the legal objections and critiques from the legal community of the country—including lawyers, legal scholars, and university professors—regarding life-taking sentences and their public execution, arise from the belief that, according to legal principles and Islamic rulings, such punishments must be carried out strictly in accordance with the letter of the law. Legal procedures must provide the condemned with a proper opportunity to make use of legal defenses and appeals, as defined by the law. Given the irreversible nature of such punishments, the utmost caution must be exercised in issuing and executing them.

The prevailing theories governing the definition and determination of punishments, attention to the social conditions under which the crime occurred, the government’s duty to achieve social justice, existing laws and regulations on the rights of the accused and citizens, trial procedures, and countless other conditions were not established for any purpose other than realizing justice in the trial process. A fundamental requirement of this goal is avoiding the dominance of “verdict” over “law.” Governmental actions rooted in the authority of authoritarian rulers led to resistance against such coercive rule—rulers who issued sentences based on personal desire, and executioners were obligated to carry out their orders. Therefore, the first spark for establishing legislative institutions among human beings was ignited precisely to counter such behavior.

From then until today, the ultimate and final goal of legislating laws is the implementation of justice. Undoubtedly, access to this long-sought aim requires tools and preconditions, the first of which is the acknowledgment of the necessity of adhering to the law.

Given that most theorists of criminal law schools and both classical and contemporary Islamic jurists consider the philosophy behind enacting criminal punishments in Islamic Sharia to be the realization of social justice and respect for public order and moral values, it seems that carrying out such a severe punishment as execution in public is contrary to the characteristics of social justice and the importance of respecting the psychological conditions of citizens. This is especially true because a segment of society—those who are experts and knowledgeable in this area—based on legal evidence, legal reasoning, and current societal conditions, express their opposition to the public execution of life-taking punishments in various ways. If the ultimate goal of the judiciary is to realize social and judicial justice, then there is no harm in the esteemed judges exercising the highest level of patience and reflection—qualities that are inherently expected of Islamic judges—before issuing and ordering the implementation of such sentences.

It is self-evident that under such conditions, the issued sentences would receive support and approval from the country’s legal community. This aspiration becomes reality when we accept that those who criticize such rulings are children of this land, educated in the same knowledge as the respected judges who issue verdicts based on that same knowledge. Therefore, this level of conflict in the interpretation of legal statutes and trial procedures—especially in the stage of execution, which must clearly reflect the precise letter of the law—cannot be tolerated by society, particularly the legal community, and is the very reason for diverse opinions and legal critiques.

The Regulations on the Execution of Hudud Sentences, enacted on June 17, 2019, outline specific rules for the implementation of capital punishment that must be followed precisely. The most important of these rules is observing the legal deadlines and postponing execution due to the potential for filing objections such as petitions for retrial or awaiting a final verdict. Failure to adhere to Article 28 of the said regulations—linked to Article 114 of the Islamic Penal Code and Article 12 of the Execution of Hudud Regulations—has become a basis for the critique and objection to public executions.

According to these very regulations, the practice of executing death sentences in public is subject to legal scrutiny and challenge.