The Punishable (Ta’azirat) Approach to Rape in Iran’s Criminal Law

Rape, which is known in Iranian jurisprudence and law as adultery, is a crime against the physical integrity of the victim (women) by resorting to force and physical pressure and without her consent. In the Islamic laws, maximum punishment is enforced on rapists. The necessity for the issuance of execution verdict in case of forcible abuse is for the reason that the judges are to exercise maximum precaution by verifying the conditions of the forcefulness. Considering Ta’azir punishments for sexual crimes in that they have the ability to adapt to temporal and spatial conditions in relation to certain punishments and consider the individual circumstances and characteristics of the offender in determining the appropriate punishment, more effectively ensure the achievement of goals. In recent years, the judicial system’s approach has been distancing away from determining Hadd punitive responses and endeavoring for the replacement of Ta’azir and graded punishments. The present study has been conducted based on a qualitative method where references are taken from some courts’ decisions and sentences so as to find an answer to this question: Can the title “sexual abuse” or “rape” be accepted in most of the files or is it the judges prefer to choose other criminal titles instead of sexual abuse in line with the widening of the discretion for the issuance of various Ta’azir verdicts according to proofs of justification and the extant evidence and documents? Since the theoretical jurisprudential foundations of violating the Hadd punishments have existed in the Islamic jurisprudence till now, it seems the elimination of Hadd punishments and widening of judges’ discretion for selecting proportional Ta’azir punishments by avoiding to accept the forcefulness is a solution closer to justice and parallel to the support of the victims.