Penal Responsibility of the Minors with Emphasis on Imam Khomeini's Viewpoints

There is no distinction between the stages of growth of the children and degree of their penal responsibility in the Islamic Penal Code, particularly in Article 49, while every individual before attaining the age of religious maturity is delivered from penal responsibility.As soon as an individual attains the age of maturity he or she is fully responsible and is punished for any offense. The question is:what happens in a single day that the legislator changes his viewpoint that causes significant consequences for the person who attains maturity. Another question is whether the announced age can be a precise criterion for the maturity of boys and girls? The present paper is an attempt to study the penal responsibility of the children in Imamiyeh jurisprudence with distinction between age of penal competency and criminal responsibility and in conclusion the Convention of the Children Rights is also reviewed.