to the security bodies or had been solicited for payments of money to appear on the list,
threatening due process and questioning the independence and neutrality of the Judiciary.7
Additionally, although the CCP guarantees the right to free legal assistance for those without
adequate financial resources, the applicability of this right is differentiated between the pre-trial
and trial phases.8 For instance, the CCP does not ensure access to free legal assistance during the
investigation phase in cases where the accused faces charges other than those punishable by
severe punishments such as the death penalty or life imprisonment. As a consequence,
safeguards provided in the Iranian legal framework fall short to protect the accused person’s
right to access legal counsel in the pre-trial phase. Yet, the Human Rights Committee has
explicitly stipulated that the accused should be granted prompt access to legal counsel,9 including
during the pre-trial phase.10 In May 2019, the Iranian legal and judicial parliamentary
commission proposed an amendment to Article 48 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which
would allow the prosecution to delay access to a lawyer for 20 days, with a possibility of
extension to the whole duration of investigation, in cases related to national security, terrorism of
financial corruption.11 12 Such amendment would further restrict access to legal counsel during
the investigation phase.
Despite the existence of several mechanisms that ostensibly accept complaints regarding
violations of citizens' rights, such as the Article 90 Commission of the parliament (established
based on Article 90 of the Constitution, offering a mechanism to citizens to file complaint
against any of the three branches of power) and the Oversight Bodies for the exercise of
Citizenship Rights in the country's provincial courts, there is no evidence to suggest that
complaints to these bodies are independently reviewed and investigated.13
In its 2019 Report to the Universal Periodic Review, the Islamic Republic of Iran stated that it
adopted measures including “providing access to a lawyer and benefiting from legal advice” and
added that “In the agreement with the center of lawyers and legal advisers of the Judiciary and a
7
“Iranian Lawyers Criticize Proposal to Deprive Defendants of Right to Choose Counsel,” Human Rights Activists in Iran, June
6, 2018 (https://www.iranrights.org/library/document/3443)
8
Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE1327082016ENGLISH.PDF
9
UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), General comment no. 32, Article 14, Right to equality before courts and tribunals and to
fair trial, 23 August 2007, CCPR/C/GC/32, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/478b2b2f2.html
<https://undocs.org/CCPR/C/GC/32>
10
Human Rights Committee, Concluding observations on Georgia, CCPR/C/79/Add.75, para. 27, HRC, Concluding observations
on the Netherlands, CCPR/C/NLD/CO/4, para. 11.
11
Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, https://www.iranrights.org/newsletter/issue/99
12
Amnesty International, www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/0379/2019/en/ ;
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/05/iran-proposed-law-restricting-access-to-lawyer-would-be-crushing-blow-forjustice/
13
Joint submission to the Human Rights Committee, Abdorrahman Center, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC),
Impact Iran and Human Rights Activists in Iran, 2020,
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=INT%2fCCPR%2fICS%2fIRN%2f42313
&Lang=en
2