A Survey Around the Legally Age of Child to Distinguish between Right and Wrong Based on Its Concept in lexical, Juridical, and Iranian Law Issues

The lexical semantic scholars have not stated a specific age for the child who could distinguish between right and wrong or not, and only considered the time of birth to the time of puberty in general. But jurists in jurisprudential sources, consider this age in relation to child's ability to understand his own advantage and disadvantage. Based on this, the child normally form his birth to age of six or seven could not understand these points but after that age to fourteen or fifteen years old when he gains puberty, will be considered as a child who understands right and wrong. The lawyers, following the jurists, have accepted the same idea but with this difference that the age of understanding is usually between ten and twelve. However, some lawyers considered aforesaid age in a relatively manner, because of the children's power to understand and distinguish. In the present article, which is compiled by the library study method with an analytical-descriptive approach, it has been concluded that from the birth time to about age of seven, the child could not distinguish between right and wrong but from this age to puberty, which is about age of fifteen, the child could understand and distinguish between right and wrong.