Special Clerical Court, or Special Court for Clerics (), is a special Iranian judicial system for prosecuting crimes, both ordinary and political, committed by Islamic clerics and scholars. The Special Clerical Court can defrock and disbar Islamic jurists, give sentences of imprisonment, corporal punishment, execution, etc. The court functions independently of the regular Iranian judicial framework, with its own security and prison systems,

The most senior Islamic politician to be prosecuted and sentenced to prison since the Iranian Revolution has been Abdollah Nouri () who was sentenced to five years in prison for political and religious dissent by the court in 1999.

The Court was established in the early 1980s on an ad hoc basis, subsequently phased out, and then re-established in 1987. It was fully institutionalized and endowed with a "code" in 1991 under Supreme Leader Khamenei. This code was revised and expanded in 2005. In addition to a Special Court for the Clerics, there is also a Special prosecutor for the clerics who is also appointed by the Supreme Leader and sometimes conflated with the court.

According to scholar Mirjam Künkler, "since the mid-1990s ... the court has been used increasingly as an instrument for the suppression of dissident clerics, and at times even non-clerical culprits."

History

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini began to set up a "special clerical court" (SCC) to "defend Islam" and deal with those whom he called "corrupt clerics" within months of the February–March 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.

During the early years of the Iranian revolution (the "first phase" of the court), In the Court's "second phase", from the beginning of 1980, it pursued its work with more discipline. In the late 1980s, the court was officially established in Qom. There had been one court in Tehran, he added ten other branches throughout the country (Tehran, Qom, Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Sari, Ahvaz, Kerman and Hamedan). However, not included in all these new changes was the legalization or integration of the court into the official Iranian justice system per Khomeini's letter. The court remained under the direct jurisdiction of the Supreme Leader.

Size and leadership

The cases and procedures before the SCC "are generally secret and confidential", so there is no official information about how many people the court has put on trial, what charges have been brought or sentences passed.

However, according to one estimate (by Wilfried Buchta), in the year 2000 there were about 3000 prisoners in the SCC system, 6000 people in its employment. Over a twelve-year period from 1988 to 2000, about 600 people were sentenced to death and executed, 2000 clergy were defrocked and another 4000 punished with prison sentences, fines or beatings While this may seem to involve an unusually large number of offenders and punishments, the SCC chief justice Hojjat al-Islam Mohammad Salimi stated in 2006 (to the effect) that about 2000 complaints are registered with the SCC per year.

Heads of the Special Clerical Court since its inception (as of 1987) are:

  • Ali Razini (1987–2012)
  • Mohammad Jafar Montazeri (in office as of 2012).
  • Frequently the accused are not promptly informed of the charges against them. (Article 32 of the Constitution of Iran states the defendant must be properly arraigned and the charges against him must be conveyed clearly and in writing);
  • The court runs its own security and prison systems, despite the fact that Article 168 of the Iranian Constitution states that the General Courts are the only judicial authority that has jurisdiction to review press offenses.

Iranian Conservatives have argued that Iran's Supreme Leader has the power to make new courts if he wishes on the grounds that according to Iran's Constitution, the Supreme Leader has absolute power, and so is not limited by the rules of the constitution.

Complaint about legitimacy

A number of sources have questioned the constitutionality of the SCC system.

The Human Rights Activist's News Agency of Iran (NRANA) complains that the court is not mentioned in the constitution, and has not been approved of by the Islamic Consultative Assembly. Several points of the constitution indicate the court's illegality (according to the NRANA):

On 25 June 2000, the SCC ordered the Tehran daily Bayan, run by Hojjatoleslam Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, to cease publishing. Mohtashemi was a former interior minister and aide to President Mohammad Khatami.

In early August 1999, the Clergy court "imposed a five-year ban" on the newspaper Salam. Salam was founding in 1991 after a group of left-wing but "veteran revolutionary" pro-regime clerics, were not only banned by the conservative Guardian Council from running for the Assembly of Experts, but could find no newspaper even willing to print that news and their protest. (Despite its limited circulation and focus on influencing policy, the paper became very popular and helped elect reformist Muhammad Khatami president in 1997.)

Prior to this ban, at least one of the clerics, Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha, publisher of Salam, was convicted for defamation and spreading false information.

Explanation for unique status

The leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, also created the religious/political concept of velāyat-e faqih or "Guardianship of the (Islamic) Jurist", which held that since government should/must be run in accordance with traditional Islamic law (sharia), the rightful ruler (until the reappearance of the "infallible Imam") would be the leading Islamic jurist (faqih, an expert in sharia) to rule over the people and nation. He (males only) would provide political "guardianship". In Iran the post of Supreme Leader was established to fulfill this role. Though Khomeini's massive popularity paved the way for this system of government, seven of the eight leading Shi'i jurists at the time (the eighth jurist was Khomeini), did not accept "the status the vali-e faqih was accorded in the 1979 Iranian constitution.

Scholar Mirjam Künkler sees a connection between this lack of clerical support for the theological basis of the Supreme Leader, and the special powers (direct control by the Supreme Leader, being outside of the judiciary system of the Islamic Republic and the Constitution of Iran, trials that are not open to the public and do not allow the accused to choose their own defense counsel, and whose verdict cannot be appealed to the Supreme Court of Iran, etc.), of a court of law devoted just to religious clerics. If the reason for being of the Guardian ruler is based on the principle of velāyat-e faqih, and dissident cleric theologians are exactly the people who could "prove the extent to which the velāyat-e faqih is inconsistent with Shiʿi traditions and the extent to which it is a theological novelty whose primary function is to justify the exercise of authoritarian rule"; then:

Selected list of prisoners

Among at least somewhat prominent Clerics who have been "dealt with" in the Islamic Republic:

  • Ahmad Azari Qomi (arrested in 1997 after criticizing Supreme Leader Khamenei. was forcibly expelled from clerical institutes in Qom and when his term in the Guardian Council ended, his renewed candidacy in 1998 was rejected by the Guardian Council);
  • Hussein-Ali Montazeri (was kept in confinement from 1997 to 2003 after criticizing the authority of Khamenei);
  • Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari (read out a show confession on television, kept under house arrest from approximately 1982 to his death in 1986);
  • Yousef Saanei (offices in Qom were attacked by Basij paramilitary in December 2009—staff beaten and offices destroyed; In January 2010, he was declared by the Qom Theological Lecturers Association to no longer be a marja al-taqlid);
  • Abdul-Karim Mousavi Ardebili,
  • Asadollah Bayat-Zanjani
  • Abdol-Hamid Masoumi-Tehrani (sentenced to prison in the Clerical Court on at least two occasions);
  • Hassan Tabatabaei Qomi (kept under house arrest for some time) and passed away in confinement)
  • Mohammad Sadeq Rouhani
  • Mohammad al-Shirazi
  • Mohammed Ridha al-Shirazi
  • Mohammad Taher al‐Shubayr al‐Khaqani
  • Sheikh Muhammad Tahir Aal Shabbir Khan
  • Ali Tehrani (broadcast anti-Islamic Republic speeches on Baghdad's Persian-speaking radio and television; was arrested when he returned to Iran in 1995 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison but was released after ten years in 2005);
  • Abdolmajid Moradzehi (aide to Sunni cleric arrested in January 2023 for "manipulating public opinion" and "communicating on several occasions with foreign individuals and media outlets");
  • Kazemeini Boroujerdi, (imprisoned in Evin Prison for "crimes against God", after he refused to accept the doctrine of absolute velayat-e faqih);
  • Morteza Fahim Kermani
  • Hadi Ghabel, (convicted of insulting the Supreme Leader);
  • Ahmad Ghabel
  • Hadi Khamenei (brother of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, advisor to President Mohammad Khatami, hospitalized twice from head injuries beatings by supporters of hard-line leadership, SCC temporarily banned his Hayat-e No newspaper in January 2000)
  • Mohsen Kadivar (sentenced to 18 months in prison by SCC in 1999, for spreading false information about Iran's "sacred system of the Islamic Republic" and of helping enemies of the Islamic revolution;
  • Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari (convicted of "denying and insulting the holy religion of Islam", 'insulting top-rank officials' and other charges by the SCC served four years in prison);

Clerics executed ("for dependence on the former regime" or activities forbidden by the Islamic republic) on orders of the Clerical Court:

  • Mehdi Hashemi (opposed to the regime's secret dealings" in the Iran–Contra affair, he was executed in September 1987, officially for sedition, murder, and related charges)
  • Abdolreza Hejazi (a preacher in Tehran who was accused of plotting for a coup shortly after the revolution; was defrocked and executed in 1983);