Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The Theoretical Challenges of Iran's Legislative Criminal Policy Regarding Attention to the Legitimacy of Criminalization

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Meysam Mahdavi Shanaghi 1
Shadi Azimzadeh 2
Alireza Jamshidi 1
1 Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
2 Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
10.22034/jclc.2025.512080.2118
Abstract
The legislative criminal policy of Iran, in accordance with Article 4 of the Constitution, is influenced by religious rules and norms, which prompts the dominance of a religious paternalistic approach over it. This research, utilizing a descriptive-analytical method, seeks to answer the question of what challenges this dominant approach in criminal policy and the religious background of criminal regulations create when considering the issue of the legitimacy of criminalization, so that by answering this question, these challenges and the grounds for their emergence are explained. The findings of this research indicate that the criminalization of religious norms, due to the unchangeability of these norms and the approach of strict adherence to religious norms without attention to the necessity of discovering and understanding their underlying interests, leads to the creation of a religious paternalistic approach in the sphere of legislative criminal policy and brings its model closer to the state model, which results in the expansion of criminal intervention into private spheres and will pose an obstacle to attention to the legitimacy of criminalization. Meanwhile, from the condition of the prevalence of the ruling in the confirmatory rulings (ahkām imzāyi) of Islam, one can arrive at the necessity of attention to the legitimacy of criminalization and overcome these challenges.
 
Keywords
Legislative Criminal Policy, Legitimacy of Criminalization, Religious Norms, Paternalistic Approach

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Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
Volume 13, Issue 26
Autumn 2025
Pages 183-216