The Limitations on the Principle of Transparency in Quran and Public Law of Iran

Abstract

Transparency as the free circulation of political, social and economic information has a key role in the governance. There are some exceptions for this principle in the public law. In this article, these exceptions have been studied by referring to the Iranian public law specially the IRI Constitution. Then, in order to clarify the Islamic approach in this regard, the subject is followed in Quran and Islamic narrations. The findings of this article that is conducted in a descriptive-comparative method, demonstrate that this principle has not been accepted absolutely in Quran and Islamic narrations and some limits are taken into account for it that can be divided into public law and the fundamentals of Islam domains. These limitations in the public law domain can be understood from those ayahs of Quran and narrations referring to the protection of sanctity and respect and those prohibiting the propagation of prostitution and rumors disrupting the independence and disclosure of military secrets as well. Furthermore, the limitations relating to fundamentals of Islam are deduced from ayahs and narrations on prohibition of insulting Islamic sanctities and publishing illusory books and weakening the beliefs of.

Keywords

• transparency
• limitations on transparency
• right of access to information
• public law