Mediation in Imamiah jurisprudence and Iranian criminal law

Criminal mediation, as one of the manifestations of restorative justice, is a three-way process that begins based on the prior agreement of the victim and the offender with the presence of a third party named mediator in order to resolve disputes and issues arising from the crime. This process may be presented in three forms: customary, voluntary or formal mediation. The transition from a criminal policy based on criminalization and maximum punishment to alternative methods such as mediation will both reduce criminal inflation and provide the basis for repairing the broken tissues of society. Therefore, the present study intends to use a descriptive- analytic method to answer the question that which group of religious crimes can be referred to mediation based on jurisprudential principles. The conclusion is that all the Hadds </em>(fixed religious punishments) and  T’azirs</em> (unfixed punishments) related to rights of people as well as retaliation can be mediated with the plaintiff, so the reasons for prohibiting intercession within the Hadds</em> do not include the Hadds</em> related to the rights of people. On the other hand, mediation with the ruler, which is also called Shafa’ah</em> (intercession) can be applied only in crimes against God and when the accused has repented and the evidence has not yet been presented to the judge. Intercession is also possible in all cases where the judge has the power to pardon. Therefore, the legislative’s position in confining mediation to sixth to eighth degree T’azir</em> offenses has no sufficient justification.