A Reductionist Approach to Capital Punishment in Iranian Criminal Law

According to the Constitution, in Iran, the legislator is obliged to legislate based on Shiite jurisprudence. Referring to jurisprudence implies that there are diverse opinions on one single issue and the legislator faces the question that out of all these opinions which one should be chosen to comply with law. In response to the question, so far various opinions have been expressed and so many of them have been criticized. The answer to this question is the adherence of the legislator to high-level principles. The rules like "precaution in bloodshed", "the rule based on the limits of negligence", "life preservation", "non-aggression in bloodshed", "elimination of Hodood", "preferring amnesty instead of doing mistake in punishment", "preferring impunity" and "preferring the principles of ease and conciliation" are the cases has been mentioned in Shiite jurisprudence indicating the importance of the right to life in Islamic paradigm. On the other hand, there are some concepts supposing that by assembling some minor principles, we can attain general provisions of such concepts. We can mention Bagher Sadr′s theory elaborated in his book titled "Eghtesadona" and the psychological theory of "Gestalt". If we consider principles and rules in the way "Bagher Sadr" and "Gestalt" look on them, we will realize that all of them show the importance of life and right to living. Now, if we intend to answer the question regarding the abovementioned statements that what legal decisions should be transformed into law, we should say that in cases in which there is no consensus among the juridical comments, our decision must be based on the rejection of capital punishment.