The Tendency Toward Capital Punishment in Iranian Legal System

Capital punishment has undergone many changes throughout history from different aspects in line with other issues in criminal law and good efforts have been made to reduce it in international levels. However, lawmakers in Iran have not made an important effort to reduce it. Lawmakers in Iran are required to make laws according to Shiite fiqh, therefore, high rate of capital punishment in Iran is usually attributed to fiqh which is not a correct understanding. Punishments leading to the loss of life which have been decreed by shari’a have such a strong position that the Iranian constitution as well as Iranian culture and religion do not accept their removal. However, the number of these shar’i punishment are very low. On the contrary, the number of capital punishment in positive law is high, many of which are seriously challenged due to lack of shar’i foundations and opposition to the purpose of shar’ especially hanging for ta’ziripunishment. The author believes that execution as a ta’ziri punishment does not have a strong position in fiqh and many of these cases require revision.