Supporting Privacy in Uncovering Obvious Crimes

Since “obvious crimes”, the subject of article 45 of the code of criminal procedure is just presented by examples and there is not any specific criterion for it, the officer cannot use that definition as a default principle in suspicious cases. Thus, on one hand, with reference to the application of privacy in verbal arguments, Imam Khomeini’s fatwa in his 8-article command, and by scrutinizing the content of articles 56 and 57, the default principle, in dealing with obvious crimes that are suspected to be contrary to the public safety and security, is not to be pursued and not to be reported. On the other hand, these crimes, either based on the criterion of “necessitating being public” are not considered obvious or based on the criterion of “visibility” in all places, are considered obvious but the law of obvious crimes will not apply to them. Therefore, the agents’ acts will be illegal and will be subject to acquiring evidence through illegal means.