Faṣlnāmah-i Pizhūhish-i Huqūq-i Kiyfarī (Jun 2023)
The Impact of Mistakes on the Determination of Hadd Repetition Frequency
Abstract
Under Article 136 of the Islamic Penal Code (approved in 2012), the legislator has outlined the sentence of repetition in Hadd crimes. In accordance with this article, the punishment for committing a Hadd offense for the fourth time is death. However, neither the text of the law nor the legal doctrine addresses the case in which there is a mistake in counting the number of times the Hadd is applied. As an example, in the event that the perpetrator is punished four times with the same Hadd punishment, the death sentence can be imposed on them the fifth time, in accordance with Article 136.The present study is intended to answer the following question: "What is the effect of making a mistake in counting the repetitions of the Hadd punishment?" There are many examples of making a mistake in counting the number of times the Hadd punishment has been enforced, and it is possible to approximate more or less the number of repetitions, even though a number of examples are provided in the jurisprudence in this case.It is possible to consider three hypotheses in relation to the impact of the mistake on the punishment for repeating the Hadd: 1) The absolute absence of the consequence of the mistake in counting how many times the Hadd is executed, and the allowance of executing the death sentence in subsequent rounds. 2) The relative impact of the mistake, in such a way that if the perpetrator is responsible for the mistake, the mistake is not effective in counting the number of times the sentence is executed, and if the perpetrator is not the person responsible for the mistake, the fulfillment of the mistake will result in the exemption from the death sentence. 3) The absolute effect of the mistake and the prohibition of executing the death sentence in future rounds.In the present research, firstly, various cases in which a mistake was found in counting the number of repetitions were examined, then the three hypotheses mentioned were assessed based on the examples mentioned, and finally, the hypothesis of the absolute effect of the mistake in the number of repetitions, which caused the punishment prescribed in Article 136 to be extinguished is favored.
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