Seitenhistorie

Historically the idea of the rule of law (_hākemiyat-e qānun_) in Iran has been in constant conflict with arbitrary monarchical power on the one hand and with the principle of the rule of _Sharia_ (_hākemiyat-e shari'at_) on the other (Rezaei: 2002, 55 et seq.). While the decades between the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11 and the Islamic Revolution of 1979 saw some progress in the direction of the rule of law (cf. _inter alia_ Arjomand: 2008, 47 et seq.; Arjomand 2010) the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979 led to an explicit primacy of the rule of _Sharia_ based on article 4 of the Iranian constitution (IC) \[_Article 4 IC: 'All civil, penal financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria. This principle is absolutely and generally binding to all articles of the Constitution as well as to all other laws and regulations and the \{_}foqhohā_ of the Guardian Council are judges in this matter.'\].