| Iran's post- 1979 Islamic Criminal Code (Qanun-e Mujazat-e Islami), enacted by the Iranian Parliament in 1982, and revised in 1991, is a prime example of a criminal code that has been premised on a revivalist notion of Islam and of its Sacred Law. Based on "semi-official" data, this paper argues that although the Code covers a wide range of Islamic notions of crime and punishments, it nonetheless suffers from a double legitimation crises: It is very difficult to institutionalize the articles of the Code from a procedural perspective, at the same time that it has proven quite discriminatory from the stand point substantial laws that the Code has envisioned in resolving social and legal conflicts. In particular, the Code's incompatibility with the Universal Human Rights is the main stumbling bloc in its acceptance as a legitimate legal document.
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Updated 05/20/2006