News & Views

Iran mayor trial raises pressure for legal reform

By Kaveh Basmenji

TEHRAN, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Iran's judicial system, which combines the role of prosecutor and judge in one, is under pressure to reform following the recent corruption trial of Tehran's mayor, legal experts said on Tuesday.

Mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi, a key political ally of moderate President Mohammad Khatami, was found guilty in July after a politically charged trial that gripped public attention.

He was sentenced to five years in jail, a 20-year ban from holding public office, and a heavy fine. Further punishment of 60 lashes was suspended.

His supporters alleged the charges brought by the conservative-led judiciary were politically motivated. Karbaschi, who remains free, faces a Thursday deadline to appeal the verdict.

Many Iranian legal experts are calling for an immediate reform of the system, which has been in place since 1995.

``The general courts should be replaced by a system based on specialisation,'' one attorney told Reuters.

``In the past we had separate courts for civil and criminal cases. We also had separate systems for investigating and judging. It is against common sense that the plaintiff gather evidence and pass judgment himself,'' he said.

Pressure for reform mounted with the trial, which was broadcast on state radio and television. Until the hearings, few people were aware of the rules of the courts, except for jurists and lawyers -- and, of course, defendants.

Popular outrage largely focused on the dual role of Judge Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, who acted as prosecutor and judge.

One Western diplomat described the trial as ``a televised interrogation.''

Mohammad-Reza Kamyar, publisher of the monthly journal Law and Society, said legal experts were ignored when the new laws were enacted.

``The judiciary and the government should explain why they insisted on a bill opposed by the experts from the very beginning,'' Kamyar said.

Separate civil and criminal courts which existed in Iran before the 1979 Islamic revolution remained in effect into the 1990s while elements of an Islamic justice system were introduced into the judiciary.

But the situation changed in 1995 when the law of general courts was introduced to relieve the judiciary of a backlog of files awaiting investigation by cutting the judicial procedure in half.

According to the law, the separate systems of gathering evidence and passing judgment were combined, and the judge was made responsible for the case from beginning to end.

``Apart from damaging the judge's impartiality, the new law led to inexperienced and underqualified judges handling a wide spectrum of cases, from divorce to murder and embezzlement,'' Kamyar said.

A spokesman for the judiciary said at the weekend that a motion for amending the law on general courts would be forwarded to the Majlis, or parliament, soon.

Ali Abbasi-Fard said the Justice Ministry's legal and parliamentary officials had been commissioned to collect and study all proposals evaluating the present law.

``The judiciary will welcome any change in or amendment to the law by the Majlis,'' he said.

But he added that as long as the present law of general courts was in force, the judiciary and judges were expected to abide by it.

The current system is strongly supported by Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, judiciary chief for nearly a decade and an influential voice in conservative political circles.

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