Criminal responsibility of municipality under the shadow of ambiguity in the criteria for recognizing sovereignty and commercial activities

The Iranian legislature has used the old division of actions into sovereignty and commercial activities in various laws without announcing specific criteria. In the note of Article 20 of the Islamic Penal Code enacted in 2013, the imposition of punishments onto the governmental and nongovernmental public institutions including the municipality in the exercise of sovereignty have been banned. In this article, with a descriptive-analytical method, we try to explain the legislator's approach to the crimes committed by the municipality in the sovereignty and commercial activities, Which we have finally could include; Firstly, in crimes requiring ransom, the legislature explicitly refers to the criminal responsibility of the municipality, regardless of the sovereignty or commercial activities of the municipality, in the note of Article 14 of the Islamic Penal Code. Secondly, in crimes requiring discretionary punishment, despite the explicit note of Article 20 of the said law Due to the doubts and ambiguities in the sovereignty or commercial activities of the municipality on the one hand and the legislature's criminalization of all acts near to the definition of sovereign acts on the other hand,Iranian criminal law in both categories of actions has made the municipality criminally liable.