Civil action in Iran’s legal system
In Iran, like any other country, a general legal system governs all legal relations in the country, whether they are qualified as legal, criminal, or…; The legal system consists of different sections and the topic of this article is also selected from one of these sections, under the title” Civil Action in Iran’s Legal System“.
Every civil action goes through many different stages, which we will further discuss. But firstly, we will deal with the merit of a civil action, as the cornerstone of the upcoming discussion.
The merit of a civil action:
A civil action in a special sense is like a container that includes a claim by a claimant against another person. A civil action with its two-sided essence, at the same time as giving the claimant the ability and legal right to demand justice for a violated or denied right before a competent authority, gives the other party, or the defendant of the lawsuit, the right to defend himself and gives the ability to confront the claimant.
Every lawsuit must be filed with judicial authority to start being processed by one of them.
How to file a civil action:
The first stage of a civil action is filing a petition, specified in Article 48 of the Law of Procedure of Public and Revolutionary Courts in Civil Affairs approved in 2000. After filing a petition, the petitioner/plaintiff becomes the defendant in the lawsuit, and the person against whom the petition is filed becomes the defendant.
Before the recent developments and the smartening of some judicial processes, filing petitions were only held in court. However, currently, in Iran, the common and main way to file a civil action before the courts is to use the Portal of Judicial Electronic Services or to refer to the Judicial Service Offices and register the petition electronically.
Nevertheless, in the cities where the electronic system of the judiciary has not yet started to operate and no Judicial Services Office has been established, people continue to prepare petitions in person in the traditional way by referring to the court.
Legal authorities addressed civil action and the jurisdiction of each
In Iran’s legal system, along with filing a civil action, it is necessary to pay attention to the jurisdiction of the courts, which is divided into two main parts, Inherent Jurisdiction, and Local Jurisdiction. Inherent Jurisdiction will be determined based on the demand or demands of the claimant, which are included in the petition. Besides that, Local Jurisdiction must be examined so that the petition is addressed to an authority that has this kind of jurisdiction, in addition to the jurisdiction to deal with the specific subject of that civil action.
According to the priority of the discussion of Inherent Jurisdiction, we will discuss this issue first.
Inherent jurisdiction
The authority that can be addressed in the stage of filing the petition and the initiation of legal proceedings in terms of Inherent Jurisdiction will be one of these three authorities:
1- Dispute Resolution Council
2- Family Court
3- General Civil Court
As it was said, it is the demand of the petition that specifies the competent authority to hear the legal dispute.
1- Dispute Resolution Council: This council was formed in accordance with the Law of Dispute Resolution Councils approved in 2015 in order to reduce the number of civil actions in legal and criminal courts and to resolve disputes between real persons and non-governmental legal persons faster and easier. The Dispute Resolution Council is an exclusive legal authority that, according to Article 9 of the relevant law, has the power to deal with certain claims and issues, such as:
– Financial actions related to movable property, that their value is at most 20 million Tomans.
– Actions related to the eviction of the leasehold, except the actions related to
Goodwill and the right to business,
– Issuance of the Grant of Probate of the Will, appraisal of the estate, sealing of estate and removing it,
– Family disputes regarding dowry and alimony up to 20 million Tomans
Therefore, if a person intends to file a petition in one of the above cases or in other cases of Article 9 of the aforementioned law, he should file it with the Dispute Resolution Council. Due to the compulsory competence of this council in the mentioned cases, if a petition containing one of them is addressed to the General Civil Court, it will not be heard by the court and the writ of incompetence will be issued and the case will be referred to the Dispute Resolution Council.
Additionally, according to Article 8, in all legal and civil matters and disputes resulting from them, the parties to the dispute can agree upon bringing the claim to the Dispute Resolution Council, instead of the General Civil Court.
2. Family Court: After examining the jurisdiction of the Dispute Resolution Council, we will discuss the jurisdiction of the Family Court as another exclusive legal authority. The jurisdiction of this court is specified in Article 4 of the Family Protection Law approved in 2012:
o Permanent and temporary marriage and prenuptial provisions of the marriage contract
o Dowry, wife’s alimony, and fair remuneration during the marriage
o Divorce, obedience, woman’s refusal to fulfill marital duties
o Custody, child’s visitation, lineage
o Incapacity and its removal, natural and legal guardianship
In these cases and other cases mentioned in Article 4 of this law, the petitioner must file his claim with the Family Court.
3. General Civil Court: The jurisdiction of the General Civil Court is a general jurisdiction and the principle is that this court has jurisdiction to deal with all (non-criminal) legal claims and matters, except in the cases provided by law be under the jurisdiction of other authorities (such as the two exclusive authorities mentioned).
Local jurisdiction
After it is determined according to the petitioner’s request which authority can hear his legal claim, it must be determined which Dispute Resolution Council or which Family Court, or which General Civil Court is competent to hear the relevant claim, which is determined according to a rule and a few exceptions as below:
The rule: Regarding the local jurisdiction of legal authorities, the rule is that the court located in the defendant’s domicile has the jurisdiction to hear the claim.
The exception: It includes several items. For example, in civil actions related to immovable property; like an apartment, the court located in the apartment’s zone is competent, or regarding the deceased person’s estate, if the estate has not yet been divided and there is a dispute regarding it, the court of the deceased’s last domicile in Iran will hear it.
What happens after filing a petition and before the hearing session?
By determining the competent authority and completing all the columns of the petition, it should be sent to the relevant jurisdiction through the portal of Judicial Electronic Services.
After this stage and the receipt of the petition to the competent court branch, the manager of the branch office submits the petition after examining it and its attachments to the court, so that with the order of the judge, the court’s secretary will determine the time of the hearing.
At this stage, the branch office notifies the petition and its attachments to the defendant and the hearing time to both the defendant and the petitioner (claimant). Currently, all the legal notices are sent electronically by Sana System, unless the addressee has not registered in the Sana System.
If the petition has any deficiencies, the court will return the petition to the court office by including the deficiencies so that the office can notify and warn the petitioner to rectify them. The petitioner will have only 10 days from the notification of this notice to rectify the deficiency.
Hearing session and issuing a final decision by the court
As the legal petition is the beginning of a legal action, the hearing also begins with the petitioner’s lawyer addressing the petition. After that, the defendant’s lawyer presents his defense and the necessary reasons and documents to the court, and if there are any witnesses, he introduces them to the court. If the court considers the statements of the defendant’s and the claimant’s lawyers to be sufficient to make a decision, it will announce the end of the proceedings and proceed to issue a final decision. Otherwise, if there is a need to renew the session, it will include this issue in the minutes of the session until it is determined and notified to the parties for the continuing of the proceedings.
Objecting to courts’ rulings in legal cases:
In Iran’s legal system, like other legal systems, litigants, their lawyers or their representatives have the right to protest the decision issued in the preliminary stage, which we will discuss about it in this section. In Iran’s legal system, there are 3 main methods for legal action litigants to protest a court ruling:
1- Protest
2- Making Appeal
3- Appeal to the Supreme Court
1- Protest: protest is an objection to the judgments in absence. It means, the court has heard the case and issued a decision while the defendant or his lawyer or legal representative was not present in any of the hearings. In this case, the absentee who has been sentenced will have the right to protest with the same court that heard the case in the first place. If the litigant is a resident of Iran, he has 20 days from the notification of the verdict to file a petition and if he is a resident outside Iran, this period will be 2 months.
2- Making Appeal: In this method, the provincial court of appeals will deal with the submitted objection. Making appeals in legal actions can be done in several cases. Here we mention two important cases:
– Judgments issued in any type of non-financial action; Such as marriage, divorce, lineage, incapacity, etc.
– Judgments issued in financial actions if the claim has a value of more than 300,000 Tomans.
The person who intends to file an appeal (appellant) will have 20 days from the date of notification of the verdict or the expiration of the appeal deadline (if there is no verdict), if he is a resident of Iran, and 2 months if he is a resident abroad.
The appeal stage, like the preliminary stage, requires filing and preparing a petition, which must meet all the conditions and items required in the preliminary petition.
After filing the appeal petition, the Court of Appeal will review the ruling of the preliminary authority, the relevant petition, and its attachments, and if it is necessary to hold a hearing, it will do the necessary steps, otherwise, without inviting the litigants, will judge the matter again by proceeding to investigate and make a decision, or depending on the case, violates the preliminary authority’s decision or amends and then approves it.
3- Appeal to the Supreme Court: appeal to the Supreme Court is a unique way of complaining, which is not a corrective complaint, but a way to determine whether a decision complies with Sharia standards and legal regulations or not.
In general, decisions that have passed the appeal stage are appealable to the Supreme Court, but in some cases, the legislator has introduced the decisions of the preliminary courts to be directly appealable to the Supreme Court in order to protect the rights of the convicted.