Identification of Quasi-Intentional Murder in Imamiyah Jurisprudence and the Legal Systems of Iran and France

Abstract

One of the types of murder which is often faced with ambiguity and on the diagnosis of which there are disagreements is the quasi-intentional murder. This is due to the fact that it is a combination of premediated and erroneous murder. Because the perpetrator has the intent to act, it is similar to premediated murder and since he/she has no in intent to kill, it is similar to erroneous murder; that is why it is called quasi-murder. The question is what is the meaning of quasi-intentional murder in the above legal systems? We answer it comparatively. In jurisprudential texts it is mentioned that “arrest the quasi-murderer if he has intent in his act or is wrongful in his intent”. In Iranian criminal law the quasi-intentional murder is a killing in which the perpetrator has the intent to perform a non-fatal behavior but has no intent to kill. The text of the Art. 121-3 of the French Criminal Code reads as follows: “There is no felony or misdemeanor in the absence of an intent to commit it. However, the deliberate endangering of others is a misdemeanor where the law so provides”. What is shared in these three systems is the typically non-fatal intention and lack of will to kill. There is no disagreement between Imamiyah jurisprudential texts and 2012 Islamic Criminal Code of Iran, but manslaughter is divided into quasi-intentional and erroneous murder in Imamiyah jurisprudence and Iranian criminal law; a division which is not mentioned in French criminal law and only the term manslaughter is used. The approach of this paper is the comparative study of principles and rules of the above three criminal law systems.

Keywords

• quasi-intentional murder
• mostly non-fatal intention
• non-intention to result
• invoking relationship