Analyzing The Licensing System of Cinematic Works in The Administrative Law of Iran

Government supervises over artistic works on two forms including: Licensing System and persuit System. In the first method, the government shall issue license for creating and publishing artistic works and in this method, the right to freedom of artistic expression is limited. However, in the second method, there is fundamental principle of freedom and upon creating and publishing artistic work only in case of violation of laws and regulations, the government may take duly action and there is no requirement for issuing license before producing or publishing artistic works. Thus, the first method is anti-freedom and the second method is agreed with freedom. The present article attempts to examine this issue in relation to films since victory of Islamic Revolution until now and it is concluded that, the statute law in all of the aforesaid years was based on licensing system. Moreover, finding out problems and formalities of aforesaid system refers to following weakness including: 1) Governmental structure of boards of licensing system and negligence for holding related associations. 2) Lack of fair deadline for issuing license of producing and publishing films. 3) Limitation in revision of decisions made by boards in the ministry of culture .4) criminal sanction for violation of Licensing System.