deals with juvenile and child defendants, the presence of an attorney is not required in trials for less serious ta’zir crimes (i.e. those with discretionary punishments), meaning a public defender would not be provided in such cases. Article 415 also states that in these cases, a parent or the child can conduct the defence.20 According to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, child defendants are frequently charged with these less serious categories of offenses, especially girls accused of prostitution, a crime punishable by flogging. Even in cases where a child defendant is eligible for state funded legal aid, there is no system in place to prioritize attorneys for children.21 In practice, authorities in Iran frequently restrict or limit access to a lawyer even in situations where it is legally permitted or required. Defendants in national security cases are often denied access to a lawyer in the investigative stage of the judicial process. In the hundreds of cases of individuals arrested for political reasons or suspected for ordinary crimes that the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has investigated, all detainees were interrogated without the presence of an attorney.22 Reported cases show a pattern of incarcerated prisoners being subjected to limited or restricted access to legal representation through all stages of the trial process.23 24 Such pattern includes cases where children were denied access to legal counsel, notably during the investigation phase, and in some of these cases were sentenced to death. 25 26 27 The Article 90 Commission of the Parliament is in charge of investigating complaints from citizens made against the operations of the Parliament itself, the executive and the judiciary.28 There is no publicly available information on data relating to the number of complaints received and investigated vis-à-vis cases of violations of the rights to fair trial and due process of children in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Additionally, there is little information as to whether children have unhindered access to such complaint mechanism. Under Iranian law, only children over the age of 15, who are legally deemed mature, may bring a case to Iranian courts unassisted.29 However, children under the age of 15 must bring cases through their legal guardians, typically a 20 Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 415, https://bit.ly/2T0Sgja See more: Joint alternative report by civil society organizations on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2015, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/IRN/INT_CRC_NGO_IRN_19809_E.pdf 22 Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, joint submission to the Human Rights Committee from the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Impact Iran, Human Rights Activists in Iran, 2020, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/IRN/INT_CCPR_ICS_IRN_42313_E.pdf 23 HRANA <https://www.en-hrana.org/political-prisoner-denied-access-to-an-attorney> 24 HRANA <https://www.en-hrana.org/arash-sadegh-golrokh-iraeis-lawyers-access-cases 25 See: <https://www.en-hrana.org/juvenile-offender-death-row-ardabil-prison>;<https://www.en-hrana.org/open-letter-kurdishcitizen-fears-for-imprisoned-brothers-life >; <https://www.en-hrana.org/mohammad-saber-malek-reisi-teenager-became-adultprison > 26 OHCHR News, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23689&LangID=E 27 Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/04/iran-two-17yearold-boys-flogged-and-secretlyexecuted-in-abhorrent-violation-of-international-law/ 28 Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/internal-regulation-on-the-commission-of-article-90-of-theconstitution/ 29 Civil Code, art. 1210 21 4