Justice, Criterion of Inference, and its Application in Issuing Judicial Decisions

Judging in the Shi’a legal system is not limited to the implementation of rules or propositions of law, but the judge, who is also a mujtahid, has a basic and independent role in the process of discovering and deriving rules. But in Iranian law and considering that the judges do not have the rank of ijtihād, the most important and fundamental question is the analysis of the role and position of the judge in the interpretation and inference of the verdict. In the legal system based on the will of the government (traditional law), the duty of the judge is just to apply predetermined rulings to disputed issues, but in the legal system based on natural rationality (modern law), the judge can interpret the rulings based on reason. Today, a paradigmatic shift is necessary for judicial justice, and that is the transition from traditional laws to modern laws. In this article, in order to implement a paradigmatic shift and by emphasizing the role of the judge in the interpretation of the rulings considered for application as well as doing research about justice and its status in the inference of rulings, justice is introduced as the purpose of Shari’a and legal apparition beyond a jurisprudential rule or the stipulation of rulings or the philosophy and wisdom of them. This way, the judge, inspired by legal principles and by using reason and judgment criteria, goes beyond the appearance of the law, and especially in the cases of absence, silence, ambiguity, or defects of the law, he makes justice the criteria for inference of judgment and as a result issues a just judgment.