The Concept and Position of “Document” in the Hierarchy of Legal Norms and the Feasibility of Legal-Judicial Citation to it

Among the legal norms, which in their usual form include the constitution, ordinary laws, and government regulations, the Iranian public law system has recently witnessed the creation of new titles such as “document”. Legal documents, which have been used mainly in the post-revolutionary legal system, have sometimes raised ambiguities about the meaning, status, and guarantee of implementing the relevant decree. The enactments announced under the title of “document” have been prepared and approved by various authorities such as the Supreme Leader, the Head of the Judiciary, the Council of Ministers, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, and other councils. The present study examined the questions that, regarding the accepted order in the system of the hierarchy of legal norms, what is the meaning of this strange title (from the viewpoint of public law terminology) and what is its place in the Iranian legal system and is it basically possible to rely on such documents legally. The current article employed the descriptive-analytical method to answer the mentioned questions. The findings of this study showed that legal documents in the legal system after the victory of the Islamic Revolution had been used in a wide range of concepts, from general strategies to program-based policies and detailed legal rules and regulations. With their status as a reference, these legal documents were credible. This article examined the concept of documents and how they were used in the legal system. Moreover, it examined the common structure of documents, their place in the hierarchy of legal norms, and the possibility of legal-judicial citation to them based on the characteristics of the Iranian legal system.