Fundamental Rights Cannot Be Put to a Referendum
Behnam Daraeizadeh, a legal scholar and human-rights researcher based in Canada, warned against approaches that subject citizens’ basic rights to popular votes. Speaking at the “Governing in Transition and Safeguarding Citizens’ Rights in Iran” conference in Oslo on 31 August 2024, organised by Iran Human Rights, he declared: “Fundamental rights—such as abolishing the death penalty or ensuring gender equality—cannot be suspended or handed over to a referendum. They must be guaranteed immediately and unconditionally in the first days after the regime’s collapse.”
He rejected any return to Iran’s civil and criminal codes, whether enacted before or after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, arguing that they are riddled with discrimination: “Family, marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance laws are all rooted in religious doctrine and inherently unequal.” Instead, he argued, transitional justice requires a minimal set of laws to guarantee security and fairness from day one. “A citizen filing for divorce or pursuing a legal case must know which rules will apply—not wait for a constituent assembly years later.”
Daraeizadeh insisted that “fundamental rights are non-negotiable”: the immediate abolition of capital punishment, elimination of discriminatory laws based on gender, ethnicity or language, and the establishment of legal equality must top the interim government’s agenda. He pointed to France’s 1981 abolition of the death penalty, despite majority opposition, as proof that human-rights commitments take precedence over referendums.
The first two years, he said, should be treated as a transitional period, during which foundational bodies—such as an electoral commission, a truth commission and transitional-justice institutions—must be created. Transparency and accountability, along with an inclusive and flexible interim government, are vital, while judicial independence is “non-negotiable.”
He cautioned against complacency: “There is no guarantee that despotism will not be reproduced during the transition. The risks of coups, foreign intervention or a resurgence of reactionary forces are real.” Successful transition, he added, depends on cooperation with international institutions and technical support from credible global organisations.
Concluding, Daraeizadeh argued that Iranians need not “reinvent the wheel”: “The world offers many successful precedents. What matters is to hold firm on fundamental rights, secure those that are non-derogable, and build transparent, accountable institutions for the transition.”
Translated from Farsi via machine translation and lightly edited for clarity.