Statements in Meeting with the Head and Officials of the Judiciary

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

First, I must express my gratitude to God for the existence of such a capable assembly, thanks be to God. I am personally familiar with a large part of this assembly, and the testimony of Mr. Yazdi, as he stated, is sufficient for anyone. He is currently in charge of the judiciary, which is of great importance. At the head of this branch is a person like Mr. Yazdi, whose virtues have been clear to me for a long time, not just recently, and we have had respect for him for many years. Thanks be to God, he is both knowledgeable and practically qualified for this important task. God has also granted him the success to utilize faithful, committed, and conscientious individuals for this important task.

Of course, this expression of gratitude does not negate the past officials. We have always had confidence, hope, and affection for those respected brothers. They truly worked hard; both those who started with the judiciary from the beginning and those who joined later. However, the current assembly before us, at the head of the judiciary, is, thanks be to God, a complete assembly. It includes scholars, experts, and competent non-clerical individuals experienced in various judicial and non-judicial matters. I am grateful to God that such a situation has arisen, and I earnestly pray to the Almighty to grant you success and assistance, for without divine guidance and help, no task can be accomplished, and no outcome can be hoped for. We must ask God to protect us from errors in word and deed.

In my belief, the issue of the judiciary is of utmost importance. In this regard, I will present some points:

The first point is that the primary duty of the judiciary is to establish justice and equity. This is perhaps the most essential matter related to people's lives in the movement and invitation of the prophets. While spiritual matters and the elevation of the soul are preserved in their place, nothing related to the administration of people's lives has been emphasized as much as justice and equity, neither in the Quran nor in the Hadith. Of course, people's welfare and security, which are among the necessities of their lives, are present; however, the emphasis on justice, upon which all matters stand, has not been placed on anything else.

Justice is not only implemented by the judiciary; all officials of the Islamic government are obliged to establish justice in their share, but the judiciary is its guarantor. If you, as the judiciary, are just and consider justice as the main and non-negotiable goal in all conditions and towards everyone—from myself to the general public and among all government officials—it is impossible for anyone to deviate from justice. The strong hand of the judge, who seeks justice and is insightful about the concept of justice and its implementation, and is aware of its violations, will pursue the violator and prevent deviation from justice.

Therefore, the health of the entire world depends on your health and your institution. If this institution becomes healthy, all institutions, whether they want to or not, will be directed towards health, even if forcibly. If, God forbid, this institution is not healthy, even if all other institutions are built healthy, they will certainly be directed towards unhealthiness, because human nature is vulnerable, and without a strong guaranteeing hand above it, it will be directed towards unhealthiness. Thus, if this institution becomes healthy, it can be concluded that all will become healthy, and if this institution is not healthy, all will become unhealthy, even if they were not initially unhealthy. This shows the importance of the judiciary.

Therefore, the first goal that should be considered here is the establishment of equity. Anyone entering the judiciary must first consider their duty to establish equity and justice in society. How this equity and justice will be established in society—what the criteria for equity and justice are—is another discussion. Our government and laws are Islamic, and naturally, equity and justice cannot be realized without conformity to Islamic laws. Anything contrary to Islam is not justice and equity but oppression. This is a separate discussion. In any case, what ultimately emerges as justice and equity must be the first goal of the judiciary.

At all stages, officials of various departments and judges who directly execute judgments, prosecution offices, preliminary judicial processes, prosecutors, investigators, judicial officers, those who want to execute the judge's ruling, and those involved from the preliminary stages to prison or temporary detention and various punishments, as well as those who facilitate work in this assembly, including supporters, clerks, and others, must aim for the establishment of justice. This culture must be created in the judiciary.

Of course, this springs from the top and flows down to the base. That is, if we see a lack of equity and justice-seeking and a burning desire for justice at the top, inevitably, many deficiencies will arise at the base. In truth, it is you who are the source of the flow. You are the ones who pour justice down to the base so that everyone has this motivation.

The second point is the issue of individuals in the judiciary. I believe that the best laws, especially in the judiciary, if placed in the hands of corrupt individuals or those with unhealthy thoughts (ignorant, uneducated, foolish, and irrational individuals), will turn into something useless and possibly harmful. Therefore, a good law is not enough. There was a time when it was said that the judiciary lacks a law for a certain task, but now this law exists; what do we want to do with this law?

The issue is that individuals in the judiciary must be reformed, and criteria must be considered. Now, I am not saying that these individuals and criteria should be ideal and that we should look for individuals who may be rare; but consider criteria that no one can have less than. In the judiciary of the Islamic Republic, anyone who falls short of this criterion should be removed from the judiciary without hesitation. That is, the judiciary of the Islamic Republic cannot tolerate a person who lacks the minimum necessary criteria. Someone who is potentially corrupt, ill-intentioned, or dishonest cannot remain in this institution.

I remember that in the early days of the presidency, a group of the Supreme Judicial Council came to see me. In that meeting, there was talk of a judge who had committed an offense in a city. I expressed my opinion about him and said, evaluate my opinion and see if you accept it or not. I said: Try that judge in the same city where he committed the offense. If it is flogging or imprisonment or anything else, execute the sentence on him there and then put him back on the bench in the same city. They said: This action weakens the judicial system. I said: In my opinion, it is strengthening; because that prosecutor or religious judge who gets punished there for an offense, when he sits behind that bench again, will say, see, this is the issue of the judiciary; even if I became corrupt, they did this to me. Therefore, he will not make a mistake again. This is divine retribution. He will no longer dare to commit an apparent offense unless he is truly sick and commits an offense. By applying this decisiveness, others will also say, see, this is the judiciary, and it punishes such offenders itself.

Of course, if, according to judicial standards, for example, a judge's hand is cut off, this prevents him from judging. I am not talking about such cases. I mean where there is no problem, for example, it was necessary to discipline the offending judge, and then he says I am a judge; but a disciplined judge. He stands firm and holds his head high and says Islamic judgment means this; I was disciplined myself, what do you say?!

One should not be merciful. Mercy here truly means injustice to this Islamic nation. In my opinion, corrupt judges should be pressured more than ordinary people. The crime of these individuals is, according to the standard of sin on Friday night or the standard of sin of the Sayyids or the standard of sin of the Shiites, which they said: if any of you sin, your sin is twice that of others; because the 'shame' is on us. This judge must be avenged. Of course, divine retribution is intended, not personal revenge. If such an individual commits an offense, if he accepts recommendations, if he does something outside the criteria, he must be punished under any circumstances. In my opinion, if this is not done, the judiciary will not be corrected.

The third point is independence. Much has been said about the independence of the judiciary. Some independence has been exercised, which in my opinion, some of this independence has not been the real independence of the judiciary. I do not know what legal experts say about the concept of the independence of the judiciary. There must be many discussions that legal experts will later discuss; but what I understand is that the judge should not wait for anyone's order or be deterred by anyone's prohibition in executing the divine ruling; because it is a divine ruling.

Of course, the issue of priority and importance is a correct point. Priority and importance exist in all divine rulings. In the matter of conflict, there are places where something is more important than another; but I am not concerned with the very small and rare exceptions observed in the execution of justice by the Prophet and the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon them). The general course should be that the independence of the judiciary is preserved in the true sense of the word. If this independence is achieved, meaning it becomes clear that influence and involvement in institutions have no effect on anyone's ruling, people will be happy and hopeful and will take refuge in the judiciary like a child taking refuge in its mother's arms.

I say we must bring the work to the point where if someone in the street makes the slightest infringement on someone else's rights, they say I am now going to the judiciary. That is, they should really say this with confidence and not feel the need for the slightest reaction. Therefore, the judiciary must truly be the reference, refuge, and sanctuary for all people.

This cannot be achieved except through that independence. Independence means that when a judge wants to issue a ruling, they do not look at whether this ruling pleases or displeases certain people. It is common in the world to blindfold the judge who holds the scales. That is, for issuing a ruling, their eyes are closed. This blindfolding is a very correct symbolic thing. I do not care who is sitting here, and in addressing individuals, I do not call one by name and another by title. I am dealing with two individuals free and devoid of all titles and considerations, and I want to resolve the dispute between these two people. Even where there is no dispute, we should implement the divine ruling in the same way.

The fourth point is adherence to the law in the judiciary. Regarding equity, we discussed that its criterion is the implementation of divine rulings. Here, I would like to talk a little about the law. In my opinion, adherence to the law in the judiciary is of utmost importance. The criterion of justice and its establishment is the law. If something is realized according to the law, it is justice, and contrary to justice is what is done against the law. When we say that justice must be implemented in the judiciary of the Islamic society or any other society, it means that we consider a series of laws valid and place them in the middle and measure everything against them, and whatever conforms to the law is justice, and whatever does not conform is not justice. Currently, we have contradictory and ambiguous laws. What is contrary to Sharia has no validity. The criterion of the law is Sharia. If we truly have a deficiency in the laws, we should address the deficiency from now on.

Just a few days ago, I heard that someone had approached a place for their work, and the other party wanted a bribe to do this person's work. The applicant did not give the bribe, and the other party said I know you are a Hezbollah member and you must be connected to an organization or somewhere that you speak so firmly; but will you give this money or not? If you give it, I will act according to this directive, and your work will be done, and if you do not, I will act according to another directive so that your work is not done! That is, there are two directives, and the way is open for me! These are ambiguous laws from which two contradictory directives can be extracted, meaning if he gave money, this government official 'has the choice' to act according to this directive, and if he did not, he can act according to that directive. I look at who you are; if you are a good, well-mannered, and generous person, I will act according to this directive, and if you are ill-mannered and strict, I will act according to that directive!

The ambiguity of ambiguous laws and the contradiction of contradictory laws must be resolved. Anti-Islamic laws must become Islamic. That is, if we want to return and address the laws and reform them, we should look from now on, not that we now have few laws, let's make laws. No, thanks be to God, there are plenty of laws.

Imam Khomeini (may his soul be sanctified) had a point in mind that I also accepted at that time and still accept now, and that is that in some cases, because our situation is bad and we are far behind that logical and correct line, and until we want to reach that line—which is the legal line—we need a shortcut, and if we do not take the shortcut, by the time we reach there, it may be too late, this is where the religious authority and 'the one who has the choice' in this matter chooses a shortcut.

This is not available to everyone, and it is not the case that anyone, any judge, any prosecutor, or any official in a corner wants to say something against the law and claim that this law is restrictive and we are closing it. No, it is not like that. These powers have very limited cases, which themselves are a law, and 'the one who has the choice' exists in the Islamic society, who, with his permission and opinion, can take shortcuts to reach that minimum path from where one starts and moves based on the law. This is only an exception and nothing else.

Regarding the administration of the judiciary, thanks be to God, I truly feel good about the current assembly. I am very pleased that, thanks be to God, with divine guidance, Mr. Yazdi was proposed for this task, and he himself accepted this very heavy burden. Thanks be to God, this work has started, and he has indeed chosen good, worthy, and competent colleagues.

The fifth point is related to this. I want to say that based on the experience I have in executive work and having been directly involved in executive work for eight years, and before that, I was involved in executive matters from the beginning of the revolution, if we want this work to be organized in terms of structure and collective executive work to be done, it is only possible with harmony and cooperation at the highest levels. That is, if two righteous individuals who are inherently righteous, but together they have a problem and cannot cooperate and accompany each other, no matter how righteous they are, they cannot get the work done.

Currently, fortunately, the ground is also prepared. In the previous form, five people were at the head, two of whom were appointed by Imam Khomeini (may his soul be sanctified), and it was possible that he considered the possibility of cooperation between these two in his criteria, and it was also possible that he did not consider it, and it was also possible that a more important interest seemed to him that he considered as a criterion. Beyond those two, there were three others who came to power through elections. There is no guarantee in elections that there will be harmony and consensus. Therefore, the basis of the work was not that there must be an understanding between those five; but now it is not like that. Now the head of the judiciary, with insight, knowledge, consultation, and consideration of various aspects, selects individuals; just as Mr. Yazdi, thanks be to God, has now selected. Naturally, in this regard, harmony and consensus can be considered, which could not be considered in the past.

This issue of harmony and cooperation and trusting the person to whom one gives responsibility and demanding responsibility and trusting the powers and assigning work to them and continuous consultation in a completely reliable assembly, in my opinion, is very important to be able to set the judiciary's work in motion and properly divide tasks.

The sixth point is the issue of attraction in the judiciary, which seems very important to me. The judiciary must become attractive; that is, scholars, experts, and thinkers in matters must truly feel that they have no hesitation in cooperating with the judiciary. They should be requested to come immediately, even volunteering themselves. This subject must be worked on a lot so that, God willing, such a state is created, and your hands are full, and if you want to prune a branch somewhere, your hand does not tremble, and you do not feel that there will be a shortage. Therefore, there must be real planning for attraction.

In this context, another point comes to my mind, and that is that in the matter of judicial investigation and crime detection, there are things that are religiously prohibited. Some of these excessive investigations and inquiries and delving into some matters are truly prohibited. One should not fabricate criminals. We should not forcibly search for someone and, with confession and admission or, for example, with forced testimony, make them a criminal and execute divine rulings on them. The foundation of the work is not like this; rather, it is religiously prohibited. For crime detection, the methodology can truly be pursued. This is one of our tasks.

When we want to bring the judge to knowledge and truly want to discover the truth, it is appropriate to search based on the same Islamic principles to see how it is possible to truly reveal these crimes through testimony, oath, etc., so that fewer innocent people fall victim to the judiciary and its agents and more criminals are caught. This meaning is a research task that seems to me can be done.

The seventh point is that in pursuing the problems that exist in society, we should truly prioritize. That is, the board of directors and policymakers of the judiciary—whatever assembly they are—should sit down and prioritize the most important ones; because today, there are truly bad cases in society that the judiciary must pursue. Let's see which ones should truly be prioritized. Now, for example, in society, there is corruption, bribery, anti-revolutionary crimes, subversion, deceit, forgery, and the like. Among these cases, which is the most important? I think if we want to look for the most important, this issue of financial and moral corruption, bribery, deceit, and the like are things that especially deprive people of security and truly rank high.

The state of insecurity is truly a bad thing in society, and it must be fought against. The Almighty God bestows a favor on the people of Quraysh and says: 'Who fed them against hunger and secured them from fear.' Prophet Abraham says to the Lord: 'My Lord, make this a secure city.' Security is so important. We, as an Islamic government, must have security in our society, and people must be assured.

Talk to the people and share the positive actions and good decisions that are being made with them. For example, say that for the individuals of a certain institution, we have issued a certain card so that from now on, when they come to the people as government or prosecution agents, there is no doubt that they have come from elsewhere. People must be informed, general judicial education must be given to them, and the pursuit of justice and confidence in association with justice must be raised in society.

Regarding the issue that Mr. Yazdi mentioned about financial permissions, I have no objection. Of course, what I said at the beginning included the permissions of Imam Khomeini (may his soul be sanctified) in specific cases. The reason is that various individuals constantly approached us and requested the cases that Imam Khomeini (may his soul be sanctified) had permitted from me. I also granted some cases absolutely or conditionally. It was mostly like this. There might not have been a case where I did not grant permission, or it was very rare. There is no objection. You are truly more deserving and entitled to be able to do something.

Regarding the issue of unknown owner properties and the like, Imam Khomeini (may his soul be sanctified) devised another method for it. Initially, he had briefly stated that certain actions should be taken, and then he himself addressed Mr. Ardabili and devised another method for it, which we also confirmed and said that the same method should be followed, and now it is supposed to be implemented, God willing, in the same way. Naturally, the gentlemen of the judiciary are the executors of those tasks, but the condition is that you know what the work is. I have no hesitation, I know that the judiciary truly and justly needs a lot of financial support, and it cannot be expected that without financial help, any work will be done. The government budget is also limited. If a correct way can be made, we are ready to do any help that we can, God willing.

In any case, we ask the Almighty God for success for you and the gentlemen. People, in any case, are hopeful towards the judiciary. All forces and efforts must be united so that, God forbid, the hopes and expectations of the people are not damaged. People are now very happy and hopeful. Perhaps some of it was due to the suspicions they had in the past. Of course, these suspicions were unfounded and truly had no basis. Those gentlemen also truly worked hard, and we should not overlook the truth. Many good works were also done. Although there were many disorders alongside it, now the Almighty God has brought hope, confidence, and light into the hearts of the people. It should not happen that, God forbid, the light of hope in the hearts of the people is extinguished. Then it will be very difficult to make people hopeful again.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings