Criminal Responsibility of Children in the Islamic Republic of Iran's New Penal Code
Source:Human Rights Documentation Center http://bit.ly/w30C8z
(22
February 2012) -- In this IHRDC legal essay, Iranian defense lawyer
Mohammad Hossein Nayyeri explains why the new Islamic Penal Code,
despite allegations to the contrary in the media, does not end the
application of the death penalty to juvenile offenders in Iran.
By Mohammad H. Nayyeri
Attorney at Law, Iranian Bar Association
LLB, LLM, PhD Candidate, Tehran, Iran
LLM Human Rights, London, UK
According to international rules, including the Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) and the Beijing Rules,[1]
every human being under the age of eighteen years old is considered to
be a child and shall not be subject to any criminal punishment. In fact,
the criminal regime for children has been separated from that for
adults—and the former has a supporting, correcting, and protecting
character. It is also internationally accepted that neither capital
punishment nor life imprisonment shall be imposed for offences committed
by children.[2]
The problem that arises in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), and
perhaps with other Islamic states, is the contradiction between, on the
one hand, the internationally accepted notion of “child” and age of
criminal responsibility and, on the other hand, the age of maturity
under Islamic Shari’a.
In other words, internationally accepted standards, without any
discrimination between boy and girl, have determined that the age of 18
is the standard age of entering into majority and full criminal
responsibility. In Islamic sources, however, reaching the age of
maturity is deemed to be the point of leaving childhood and becoming an
adult which results in full criminal responsibility. Additionally, in
none of the Islamic schools is the age of maturity under Islamic Shari’a law in complete conformity with the age of 18 as enshrined in international instruments and the age varies for boys and girls.
Before the adoption of the new Code, according to article 49 of the
old Penal Code, “children” were exempted from criminal responsibility
and, therefore, Correction and Rehabilitation Centers were in charge of
correcting measures. However, ignoring the internationally accepted
definition of the child, note 1 of the same article defined a child as
an individual who has not reached the age of maturity under Islamic Shari’a. Nevertheless, the old Code was silent on how old is “the age of maturity under Islamic Shari’a”, and, in practice, it arguably referred back to the Civil Code.[3]
According to Islamic sources, the criterion for criminal responsibility is reaching the age of maturity which, according to the Shi’ite
School in the IRI, is 9 lunar years (8 years and 9 months) for girls
and 15 lunar years (14 years and 7 months) for boys. However, proving
maturity even before the aforementioned ages is possible under Islamic Shari’a
on the basis of other physical signs. For example it is possible that a
boy under the age of 15 is deemed as having attained maturity under
Islamic Shari’a, if he is capable of producing sperm.
