Judiciary Issues Administrative Guidelines for 'Compensation for Detention' After Months

More than thirty months after the final approval and issuance of the new criminal procedure code, which includes provisions on 'compensation for damages resulting from detention', the head of the judiciary has issued an administrative guideline regarding the registration and processing of requests for compensation due to detention. According to reports from Iranian news agencies, this guideline specifies the procedures for handling and executing the decisions of provincial and national compensation commissions, taking into account the new criminal procedure code approved in March 2014 and its subsequent amendments. Based on this guideline, provincial compensation commissions will be formed with three main members and 'the necessary number' of substitute members, all of whom are judges from the provincial court of appeals, and may have multiple branches at the discretion of the head of the judiciary. Additionally, a national commission will be established to address appeals against the decisions of provincial commissions in the Supreme Court, with judges for these commissions appointed by the head of the judiciary. In the process of claiming compensation for damages resulting from detention, applicants must submit an objection request containing 'the duration of detention, and the amount and type of damage incurred', along with details of the detaining branch and the branch issuing the order for dismissal or acquittal, along with their documents for their request to be processed. According to this guideline, a ruling issued by the provincial commission for compensation can be appealed within 20 days to the national compensation commission. Regarding the execution of rulings related to compensation, the fund established for this purpose is required to act 'if funds are available', to pay compensation within a maximum of one month after receiving the final ruling, and in case of a budget shortfall, to inform the Minister of Justice to include it in the next year's budget. The sources of this fund will be from the national budget and will be allocated in the budget of the Ministry of Justice. The issuance of this guideline comes more than thirty months after the final issuance of the criminal procedure code, while Article 261 of the new criminal procedure code emphasizes that the guideline concerning the procedures for handling and executing the decisions of the compensation commissions must be prepared by the Minister of Justice and approved by the head of the judiciary 'within three months from the date this law comes into effect'. At the same time, the criminal procedure code only provides a six-month period for the detained person to appeal and request compensation, and the new guideline from the head of the judiciary remains silent regarding compensation for detentions that have occurred since the implementation of the new criminal procedure code. The lengthy process of reviewing, approving, and implementing the new criminal procedure code passed the Islamic Consultative Assembly on March 4, 2014, while the Assembly had agreed to a trial implementation two years earlier in February 2012 for three months. Subsequently, the Guardian Council submitted the bill on March 26, 2014, and more than a month later, on April 23, 2015, this law was published in the official newspaper of Iran. This same law in Article 569 stipulates that six months after its publication in the official newspaper, this law will come into effect. Thus, considering the three-month deadline set by the legislator for preparing the guideline for reviewing and executing the decisions of the compensation commissions, it was expected that the head of the judiciary would issue this guideline in February 2015. However, the Assembly also made amendments to the new criminal procedure code in June 2015, which were issued less than a month later, but none of the provisions related to compensation for damages resulting from detention were changed in these amendments. In this regard, in October 2015, the deputy of the Supreme Court announced that the guideline related to compensation had been prepared and sent to the head of the judiciary. In the new criminal procedure code, Articles 255 to 261 address the issue of compensation for damages resulting from detention and allow detainees to claim compensation for the days of detention from the government in case of acquittal or dismissal. However, this law excludes certain cases from the compensation request, including that 'the detention of a person is due to their refusal to provide documents, evidence, and proof of their innocence', 'to evade the perpetrator of the crime, they have placed themselves in a position of suspicion and detention', 'they have unjustly created the grounds for their own detention', and 'they are simultaneously detained for another legal reason'. The issue of compensation for damages resulting from unlawful detention has also been emphasized in international documents, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, which states that 'everyone who has been unlawfully arrested or detained shall have the right to compensation'. The European Convention on Human Rights also states in its fifth article that 'everyone who has been a victim of arrest or detention in contravention of the provisions of this article shall have the right to compensation'. The Constitution of Iran also states in Article 171 that 'whenever a material or moral damage is inflicted on someone due to the fault or mistake of a judge in the subject or in the ruling or in the application of the ruling to a specific case, in case of fault, the guilty party is liable according to Islamic standards, and otherwise, the damage shall be compensated by the government, and in any case, the accused shall be rehabilitated'. Earlier in August of this year, the Iranian Minister of Justice announced a request for a separate budget allocation for compensating 'wrongful detentions' and stated that the government alone cannot bear these costs. He added that 'our estimate for budget allocation to compensate for damages resulting from wrongful detentions is a large number, and we believe it may not even be within the capacity of the Assembly and the government'.