Rejection or Acceptance: Mitigation of Punishment in Crimes Punishable by Hadd

Under Islamic criminal law, hadd is a punishment for which the grounds for, type, amount and conditions of execution are specified in Shari’a. In fact, when a given crime and its punishment mentioned in Shari’a explicitly, unlike Ta’zir, legislator is not allowed to revise or change such crime or its punishment according to expediency or existing circumstances and conditions, but there is a controversy among jurisconsults and lawyers in this regard. This article tries to analyses and reviews the opinions of those believing in possibility of mitigation of hadd sentences or those who believe in so-called “updating” such commands, according to legal and Shari’a bases and also from the perspective of criminology while maintaining the principle of immitigability of hadd. It is also indicated that under Islamic Penal Code of 2013, legislator shows its enthusiasm, comparing to previous Penal Code of 1991, to introduce mitigation to hadd.