The pursuit of a powerful and efficient judiciary in Iran has its roots in the long history of the country. The concept of justice in Iranian history has always been traditional and has been pursued in various forms. In fact, the word “dat” in ancient Persian and Avestan means “law,” and this word has been transformed into “dad” in modern Persian, and the word “datik” derived from “dat” means “justice and judgment.” During the time of the Achaemenid Empire, the king was responsible for judging and the priests and religious leaders were responsible for enforcing the law and resolving disputes. It can be said that from that time on, the coexistence of the two institutions of judiciary and religion as the source of law emerged and this trend continues to this day. According to the remaining writings from that time, the lawmakers were also priests, which shows this coexistence in Iran during that time.

This process continued during the Arsacid era as well. The king held the highest position in the judicial system and the people had the opportunity to present their complaints about the functioning of the judiciary during the Nowruz and Mehragan holidays. They could also bring their grievances against the integrity of the rule or anyone they were dissatisfied with to the attention of the king. This process continued during the Sassanid era as well. During that time, the judicial organization, its customs, and the process of adjudication were under the control of the Zoroastrian Magi and the principles of law and judgment were based on the Avesta, the religious texts of Zoroastrianism, and the fatwas of the scholars of this religion.

After the Arab invasion and their domination over Iran, the new rulers established a new judicial system based on their own religion. During the Umayyad and Abbasid reign, the Sunni school of thought was the main source of jurisprudence in Iran. However, with the rise of the Safavids, the power shifted towards the Shi’a Imami school of thought. During this time, religious and customary matters were separated, with the religious courts under the supervision of jurists and the Shaykh al-Islam, and the customary courts under the supervision of the Shah and his agents. This continued during the Zand and Afsharid periods as well.

The Qajar era was a period in which the power of the judiciary increased under the rule of the monarch. This process evolved from the reforms of Amir Kabir and the Prime Minister to the Constitutional era.

One of the initial demands of the Constitutionalists of the Constitutional Era, even before the decree of the Constitutional Monarchy, was the establishment of a judiciary by Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar. This decree itself became a preamble for the process of constitutionalizing power and the rule of law in Iran.

After the issuance of the Justice Order, Iran entered the era of constitutionalism. The bitter story of the process of the Iranian people’s constitutional revolution, the minor tyranny and then the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty, is a long and instructive tale. But in terms of the issue of justice, it must be said that after the issuance of the order, the work was handed over to the judiciary and a new institution gradually gained control. Ali Akbar Khan Davar, one of the famous figures of the Pahlavi era, became renowned as the founder of modern judiciary in Iran. He transformed the Iranian judicial system and new civil laws were drafted with the approval of religious scholars such as Seyyed Hassan Modarres.

During the first Pahlavi era, the judiciary was not under the command of the law, but under the command of the absolute power and the person of Reza Khan. However, in the second Pahlavi era, the beginning of the suppression process can be traced back to the coup of August 19, 1953. The trial of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh and the remaining million and detainees at that time in the military court can be considered as the starting point for circumventing the law and creating parallel courts in accordance with the law. This is something that has been discussed many times, both in the trial of Dr. Mossadegh and later in the trials of the leaders of the Iranian Freedom Movement. Although there were honest judges in the judiciary such as the late Ahmad Sadr Haj Seyyed Javadi, they were not able to use it as a tool for the oppressive regime of the Pahlavi era, due to the power of the judiciary that

With the anti-monarchy revolution in Bahman 57, it was expected that the atmosphere would become pleasant and flowers would bloom in the garden. The demons were supposed to leave and the angels were to take their place. But it seems that it does not let go of its inherent power. It embraces the powerful and creates a divine court that turns the darkness of yesterday into pure white a hundred times over.

On the seventeenth of Esfand 1357 (March 8, 1979), the legal bill for reforming the organization of the judiciary and the law of employment of judges was approved by the Revolutionary Council, which had extensive powers including the right to dissolve courts, judicial bodies, and excess judicial administrations and restructure them after purification. Following this process, on the 25th of Esfand 1357 (March 16, 1979), according to the mentioned bill, the Supreme Court of the country, its prosecutor’s office, and the disciplinary and appellate courts were dissolved and then on the 15th of Farvardin 1358 (April 4, 1979), this Supreme Court was reestablished with a new composition.

From the establishment of the new combination of the Supreme Court of the country to the appointment of Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti, the most powerful person in the Islamic Republic Party, the party supporting the full caliber of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a cleric named Seyyed Mehdi Sajjadiyan was the head of this court during the time of Assadollah Mobasheri and Ahmad Sadr Haj Seyyed Javadi. The writer could not find any information about him other than being a cleric at that time. According to witnesses of that time, the famous name in the field of law during that time was Dr. Nasser Katouzian, a prominent lawyer and one of the drafters of the initial draft of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, on the legal website and the affairs of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, under the general title “The Opinions of the Supreme Court of the Country” and the more

On March 20, 1979, in a situation where a referendum on the post-revolutionary government had been held and the Islamic Republic had been chosen as the model for the new era of governance, the founder of the Islamic Republic system, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti, was appointed as the head of the Supreme Court by a decree issued by Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini. On the same day, another decree was issued appointing Ayatollah Seyyed Abdul Karim Musavi Ardebili, another high-ranking cleric of the Islamic Republic Party, as the country’s prosecutor general. Both decrees were published in the Islamic Republic newspaper on the same day. The text of the decree addressed to Mr. Beheshti is as follows: “In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful – Mr. Hajj Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti – May his

The irony here is that in a situation where both individuals have been appointed as the highest-ranking members of a political party that has been in operation for a year prior to their appointment, this political party happens to be a key player in all political and non-political conflicts at that time. Despite the necessity for the judiciary to be non-political and impartial, the top officials of a political party are still appointed by the founder of the new system to establish a new judicial organization in the name of the newly established system – the Islamic Republic system. It is clear that when the creators of the new judicial organization are both from the same political party and are fully under the command of the founder of the system, what the result could be. When in post-conflict disputes, one side of the dispute is the Islamic Republic party and the judge is also from the same party, there is no longer any expectation of justice in this area, which is quite comical.

The result of such actions is clear. Asadollah Lajvardi, a person who was later removed from power in the 1960s due to the abundance of violence by the ruling regime, was appointed as the prosecutor of the Tehran Revolutionary Court in September 1359 during the investigation of the Firqan group case by Dr. Beheshti. The name and reputation of Lajvardi do not need any explanation or elaboration. He, along with the judicial, intelligence, and security apparatus in the 1960s, by establishing revolutionary courts that do not exist in the constitution, and also by creating a special court for the clergy in those years, according to the interpretation of the then deputy leader, turned the Shah’s white revolution into a black one and created innovations in the processes of handling cases that still exist today. The only two major innovations, both of which are against the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, are the existence of revolutionary courts and the special

One of the examples of the all-encompassing confrontation with critics before the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the change in the situation was the issue of the Retribution Bill. This bill, prepared by the judicial system under the leadership of Mr. Beheshti, was presented to the parliament. The National Front of Iran and many freedom movements, later known as the National Religious Movement, took a stand against it and criticized the bill. However, instead of paying attention to their criticism, Ayatollah Khomeini entered the scene and declared the National Front as apostates and labeled the opponents of this bill as opponents of Islam. With this confrontation, he had both himself and the judicial power and the leader of the regime on his side, without any supporting force. In fact, the domination of suppression began to spread over the Iranian society from those days.

After the death of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh in the explosion of the Islamic Republic Party office in July 1981, during the peak of suppression and violence in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, Seyyed Abdolkarim Musavi Ardabili, the country’s attorney general, was appointed by the ruling leader of the Islamic Republic to head the Supreme Court. A leader who showed during his tenure that he may disagree with a decision, but based on the political climate, may prefer to promote a different view. In the famous tape related to the massacre of Ayatollah Montazeri, (8) the deputy leader at the time, Ayatollah Musavi Ardabili, is introduced as someone who disagrees with the decision and later gives a different slogan during Friday prayers. Or despite personal opposition to the execution process in the summer of 1988, he says during Friday prayers that these individuals should be executed. When the head of the judicial system is not

On December 15, 1982, Ayatollah Khomeini issued an eight-point decree to the judicial system, which became the starting point for new discussions. The first point demanded the implementation of Sharia law in the judicial system, and the second point called for the purification and evaluation of the qualifications of its officials. The remaining points also addressed the issues of judicial immunity and security.

With the death of the founder of the Islamic Republic system in June 1989, the process of the judicial system changed. The new leader, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, began to remove all close associates of the previous leader from key positions of power. Moussavi Ardabili was a member of the Council of Combatant Clerics, which had been involved in open confrontation with the ruling power of the Islamic Republic and the clerical community. The new leaders after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, namely Ali Khamenei and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were both part of this group. This group was known as the Right of the Iranian government (later known as the Principlists or Conservatives) and during the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini, they were mostly on the sidelines of power. It seemed as though the helmsman had changed course. The leftists of the ruling power (the Council of Combatant

Yazdi was the head of the judiciary during the years of Hashemi Rafsanjani’s government and the early years of the reform era. Widespread suppression of opponents and protesters from all social classes and groups during that time, (for example, in the famous case of the 90-signature letter addressed to the then-president by critics in 1990, or the severe suppression and issuance of heavy sentences for protests in various cities during the Hashemi Rafsanjani era, which were mostly rooted in economic issues) and the great difficulties faced by writers, thinkers, and the media before and after 1976, were indicative of the state of the judicial system in an era when a one-party traditional rule (within the framework of the literature of the Islamic Republic) was supposed to be imposed on Iran and all critics and opponents were to be eliminated.

From August 1978 to August 1988, Iran witnessed the rule of another individual over its judicial system. Sayyid Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a high-ranking cleric born in the city of Najaf in Iraq, came to Iran after the revolution and became a liaison between Iranian and Iraqi revolutionary clerics. Later, he also established the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. During his time as the head of the judiciary in Iran, he was also the source of emulation in Iraq.

Hashemi Shahroudi, when he took over the judiciary from Mohammad Yazdi, openly declared that he had inherited ruins. His presence in this institution gave hope for some independence from the political forces in the country and his academic position at the time was very promising, as it seemed that the judiciary in Iran might finally move towards its main path. However, this same Hashemi Shahroudi, in April 2003, introduced Saeed Mortazavi as the public and revolutionary prosecutor of Tehran. Mortazavi was known as the “butcher of the press” and in his previous position at the Special Court for the Clergy, he was responsible for the arrest and closure of many newspapers and the imprisonment of journalists and media owners. In fact, Hashemi Shahroudi himself admitted that he had inherited ruins, but it seemed that he entrusted these ruins to people like Saeed Mortazavi so that the minimum standards of justice and law in the Islamic Republic would no longer be

Mr. Seyyed Mohammad Saifzadeh, a prominent lawyer and former judge, spoke to Radio Farda in August 2009 about the periods of the heads of the judiciary from the beginning of the revolution until that time. He said: “Five judicial crises have occurred: the politicization of the judiciary, which was carried out by Beheshti, the dismissal of specialized judicial personnel, which was carried out by Ardabili, the recruitment of security forces and government affiliates, which was carried out by Yazdi, and finally the approval of non-expert laws during these 30 years, such as the law on the establishment of public courts. Additionally, after the passing of both Dr. Mobasheri and Mr. Sadra Hajj Seyyed Javadi, anyone who came to the judiciary and took control of this great legal institution did not even know the basics of law. These five crises led to the lack of judicial security in the country.”

Saifzadeh also mentions in this interview the failure to implement orders and directives from the head of the judiciary (Hashemi Shahroudi) during his presidency. (10)

On August 13, 2009, Hashemi Shahroudi left the judicial system, but on August 10 of the same year, the trials of the accused in the post-election incidents of 1388 – known as the Green Movement – began. After Hashemi Shahroudi, the legacy of this ruined ruin fell to another native of Najaf, Sadegh Amoli Larijani. A cleric who is younger than all the heads of the judicial system in the Islamic Republic, but more powerless. A cleric who comes from the powerful Larijani family, who only entered the seminary a year before the revolution in Bahman 1357 and about two decades ago, he was known as an unpopular teacher at Imam Sadeq University. But according to reports, his research efforts in the field of government jurisprudence and his closeness and loyalty to the leader of the system have elevated him to the point where he is deemed worthy of being among the jur

Amoli Larijani is short compared to other heads of the judicial system of the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, this issue goes back to the behavior of the leader of the system. He has been trying since the end of the era of reforms to place short individuals in important positions of the country so that in the future, when the time comes for them to be replaced, they can carry out their duties in line with his policies.

During the presidency of Amoli Larijani, the judiciary has become a tool for suppressing the post-Green Movement era. Heavy prison sentences for everyone, especially lawyers, political executions, the increase in the number of executions in the Islamic Republic, and the chaos in the judicial system are just some of the disasters that have occurred during Amoli Larijani’s reign over the judiciary in Iran.

During the leadership of Mr. Khamenei, financial corruption has also been added to the collection of corruptions and illegal behaviors, against justice and against the law, by the heads of the judicial system. From the famous story of Sheikh Mohammad Yazdi’s tire to Hashemi Shahroudi’s involvement in embezzlement cases (and his withdrawal from the competition for the presidency of the Assembly of Experts), to the discussion of Amoli Larijani’s personal accounts and his infamous embezzlement of 1700 billion tomans. Financial corruption during this period has become an inseparable part of the judicial system.

The judicial system has been everything in the Islamic Republic for about four decades, except for the system in which justice is supposed to be served and fairness is established. From a tool of oppression to a center of corruption and embezzlement, this is the path that the Iranian judicial system has taken since the revolution of February 1979. The existence of courts that go against the constitution, security forces that each have their own detention centers, and the dominance of security and judicial forces outside the authority of the judicial system and the judiciary, have resulted in the Iranian judicial system being nothing but a hollow and meaningless facade. The solution, however, is to return to the law. Even if the existing laws of the Islamic Republic, its constitution and other relevant laws that are not in contradiction with the spirit of the constitution and legislation, are enforced, there may be hope for this lifeless and colossal judicial system to move forward in the long run. More than a hundred years after the Constitutional Revolution, our

Sources:

1. The Iranian Judiciary from the beginning until today, Young Journalists Club, 1 Tir month 1392.

2. The decree of constitutionalism and establishment of justice court, the comprehensive foundation of contemporary history of Iran (Institute for Political Studies and Research)

3. Military Court in the Pahlavi Government; A Narrative of Suppression and Suffocation, Institute for Contemporary Iranian Studies

4. “Condolence message from the Iranian Freedom Movement on the passing of Colonel Azizollah Amir Rahimi in Farvardin month of 1385.”

5. Najati, Gholamreza, The 25-Year Political History of Iran (From Coup to Revolution), Rasa Cultural Services Institute.

6. The unity votes of the Supreme Court, the unity vote of the General Assembly of the Supreme Court regarding the inclusion of amnesty for defendants whose crimes have not been fully completed due to external obstacles, and the legal website and affairs of the Islamic Consultative Assembly.

7. Text of the appointment of Dr. Beshiti as the head of the Supreme Court and Ayatollah Musavi Ardabili as the prosecutor, website of the Center for the Documentation of the Islamic Revolution, 10th of Esfand month 1395.

8. Text of the audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri’s speech about the executions of 67, the website “Hamneshin-e Bahar”

9. Full text of Order No. 8 by Ayatollah Khomeini, Tabnak, December 15, 2013.

10. Karimi Majd, Roya, Hashemi Shahroudi; Ten years after the delivery of “Viraaneh”, Radio Farda, 24th of August 2009.