Reform from Within? <span class='italic'>Hākemiyat-e Qānun</span> from the Reformist Era to 2022

doi:10.1017/9781108630603.009

9 - Reform from Within? Hākemiyat-e Qānun from the Reformist Era to 2022

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 April 2025

Mirjam Künkler

Edited by

Hadi Enayat and

Mirjam Künkler

Show author details

Hadi Enayat: Affiliation:
Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations, Aga Khan University
Mirjam Künkler: Affiliation:
Institute for Advanced Legal Study

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This chapter highlights the centrality of the rule of law to Khatami’s presidential campaign. It then reviews the policies of the heads of the judiciary in the post-Khomeini era, with the most far-reaching reform initiatives occurring during the tenure of Shahroudi (1999–2009). These included trying to phase out special courts, prohibiting the security services from running their own detention and prison systems, ending the death penalty for minors, ending execution by stoning, strengthening the rights of political prisoners, and reforming the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. Many of these were reversed or watered down by Sadegh Larijani, head of the judiciary 2009–2019. Ebrahim Raisi (2019-2021) revived some of Shahroudi’s reforms in sentencing and also inaugurated a concerted effort to fight corruption in the judiciary. The chapter illustrates that the judiciary is not a monolith, and much of the quality of the rule of law stands and falls with its leading administrators and professionals.

Keywords

rule of law rule by law judicial reform Khatami presidency Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi Sadegh Larijani Ebrahim Raisi Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei rule-of-law reform human rights

Type: Chapter
Information: The Rule of Law in the Islamic Republic of Iran
Power, Institutions, and the Limits of Reform
, pp. 260 - 288

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108630603.009 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abrahamian, Ervand. Tortured Confessions Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.CrossRef Google Scholar

Abrahamian, Ervand. A History of Modern Iran. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.Google Scholar

Alimagham, Pouya. Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020.Google Scholar

Arjomand, Saïd Amir. Civil Society and the Rule of Law in the Constitutional Politics of Iran under Khatami. Social Research, 76 (2), 2000, pp. 283–301.Google Scholar

Boroujerdi, Mehrzad and Rahimkhani, Kourosh. Postrevolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2018.Google Scholar

Buchta, Wilfried. Who Rules Iran: The Structure of Power in the Islamic Republic. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000.Google Scholar

Christensen, Janne Bjerre. “Human Rights and Wrongs in Iran’s Drug Diplomacy with Europe,” Middle East Journal, 71 (3), Summer 2017, pp. 403–432. www.jstor.org/stable/90016471, accessed September 3, 2023.CrossRef Google Scholar

Farhi, Farideh. “Improvising in Public: Transgressive Politics of the Reformist Press in Postrevolutionary Iran,” in Nabavi, Negin (ed.), Intellectual Trends in Twentieth-Century Iran: A Critical Survey, Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 2003.Google Scholar

Fraser Fujinaga, Antonia. Life and Limb. Irreversible hadd penalties in Iranian criminal courts and opportunities to avoid them. Doctoral Dissertation, Islamic Studies, The University of Edinburgh, 2013.Google Scholar

Fraser Fujinaga, Antonia. “Islamic Law in Post-revolutionary Iran,” in Emon, Anver M. and Ahmed, Rumee (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.Google Scholar

Ghassemi, Ghassem. “Criminal Punishment in Islamic Societies: Empirical Study of Attitudes to Criminal Sentencing in Iran,” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 15, 2009, pp. 159–180.Google Scholar

Hashemi, Said Mohammad. Hoquq-e asāsi-ye jomhuri-ye eslāmi-ye Irān. 2 vols., Qom, 1375/1996.Google Scholar

Kadivar, Mohsen. Ebtedhāl-e marjaʿiyyat-e shiʿa: estizāh-e marjaʿiyyat-e maqām-e rahbari, hojjat al-islām wa’l-muslimin Khāmenehʾi (2014). Electronically available at http://kadivar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%AA%D8%B0%D8%A7%D9%84-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AC%D8%B9%DB%8C%D8%AA-%D8%B4%DB%8C%D8%B9%D9%87.pdf (Accessed: May 11, 2021).Google Scholar

Khatami, Mohammad. Hope and Challenge: The Iranian President Speaks. Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton: Binghamton University, 1997.Google Scholar

Künkler, Mirjam. “Electoral Victory, Political Defeat: The Elimination of Zones of Autonomy in Khatami’s Iran,” in Chalmers, Douglas and Mainwaring, Scott (eds.), Problems Confronting Contemporary Democracies, Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2012, pp. 166–202.Google Scholar

Künkler, Mirjam. “The Special Court of the Clergy (dādgāh-e vīzhe-ye rūḥānīyat) and the Repression of Dissident Clergy in Iran,” in Arjomand, Said and Brown, Nathan (eds.), The Rule of Law, Islam, and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran, Albany: SUNY Press, 2013, pp. 57–100.Google Scholar

Mohammadi, Majid. Judicial Reform and Reorganization in 20th century Iran State-Building, Modernization and Islamization. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008.Google Scholar

Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, Eskandar. Revolution and its Discontents: Political Thought and Reform in Iran. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019.CrossRef Google Scholar

Shahroudi, Mahmoud Hashemi. Bāyestehā-ye Feqh-e Qazāʾ. Tehran: Nashr-e Mizan, 1378/1999.Google Scholar

Tabari, Keyvan. ‘The Rule of Law and the Politics of Reform in Post-Revolutionary Iran’, International Sociology, 18 (1), 2003, pp. 96–113CrossRef Google Scholar