After the Republic: Justice for All

Shahram Kholdi, a historian and researcher in comparative law and civil society, told the “Justice in Transition: Challenges and Solutions” conference in Oslo that the foremost task of any interim administration after the collapse of the Islamic Republic will be to restore a measure of order and calm while ensuring justice for all citizens of Iran.

The conference, held on 2–3 September 2023 under the auspices of the Iran Human Rights organisation, brought together scholars and human-rights advocates from across the globe. In his opening remarks, Kholdi observed: “On the morning after the Islamic Republic, the greatest challenge for any interim government will be to deliver justice to the victims and to guarantee equal access to the courts.”

He warned that society would face twin perils: widespread retribution by ordinary citizens against agents of repression, and a likely surge in organised crime. Only the immediate establishment of a transparent and accountable judiciary, he argued, could contain such risks.

Kholdi noted that much of the opposition discourse has centred on transitional justice and the fate of senior security and judicial officials. “Too little attention has been paid,” he said, “to the risk that popular anger may extend to all those who, in one capacity or another, denied the Iranian people their most basic rights over the past four decades.”

He underlined that the regime’s record of brutality makes a peaceful collapse improbable, pointing to its readiness to mobilise proxy forces from Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. Even so, he insisted, if the downfall were to occur with minimal bloodshed, the rapid initiation of prosecutions and the prompt administration of justice could help forestall reprisals and opportunistic violence.

Reviewing the judiciary’s current condition, Kholdi lamented that “since 1979, Iran’s once professional and modern legal system has been turned into an ideological, clerically dominated structure that has stripped judges and lawyers of their independence.” He described the immediate re-establishment of a professional, secular judiciary as an urgent necessity.

Unlike countries such as South Africa, Chile or Spain, he argued, today’s Iran lacks even the remnants of a modern, independent judicial order. Hence, while the Iranian transition may be comparable to these cases in political or social terms, in legal terms it is not. The most viable course, Kholdi suggested, is the revival—albeit updated—of the pre-1979 judicial system, coupled with the annulment of all discriminatory legislation enacted since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906.

He stressed the need for a provisional national assembly to hold any interim government accountable and to enact legislation in line with international human-rights norms. “Such an assembly,” he proposed, “must appoint the judges of the Supreme Court and guarantee adequate funding for the financial independence of the judiciary.”

Kholdi also called for what he termed a “Judicial Marshall Plan”: a programme of at least five years of international grants to rebuild Iran’s legal infrastructure. This plan, he said, should encompass the retraining of judges and lawyers, the education of law-enforcement officers, the development of digital judicial systems, and the refurbishment of courthouses and prosecutors’ offices nationwide.

After the adoption of a new constitution, he added, the emerging judiciary could adapt to any provisions for truth and reconciliation commissions. “Embedding a sustainable judicial process from the very first days of an interim government,” Kholdi concluded, “will be the surest guarantee of peace, order and good governance in the Iran of tomorrow.”

Translated from Farsi via machine translation and lightly edited for clarity.