Comparative Study of Political Crime with a Political Motive Approach in the Laws of Iran and the United States

Abstract

The emergence and manifestation of political crime in a country's substantive laws can be examined during the Constitutional Revolution period. Article 79 of the Constitutional Law Amendment of Constitutional Iran was the first step toward recognizing political crimes and criminals in Iran. This occurred while the American common law system had a longer history of defining political crime and criminals. Therefore, with legislative developments, the legislator's intention in passing the Political Crimes Law approved in 2016 demonstrated that, in proportion to the United States system where political criminalization in its laws adopts a less prominent approach, differentiating between two motives—perpetrators’ motives in crimes attributed to disturbing public order and motives aimed at reforming the country's political affairs—allows for a differential approach between the punishment of political and security crime perpetrators. Consequently, an important question arises: to what extent is Iran's legislative approach to criminalizing political crime perpetrators, when confronted with the American legal system that pursues a security and repressive approach, aligned with principles related to human rights? Therefore, this article aims to explain and examine the differences between the two laws in addressing political crime perpetrators by reviewing the related approaches of Iranian and American laws concerning the motives of political crime perpetrators.