Judicial Power and the Judges

(Wise Sayings of Imam Khomeini)

o   Islam regards judgment as the most important thing.

o   The judiciary is an important issue that has to do with the prestige of the

country.

o   The judicial power can save the country if it treats humanely and acts

according to Islamic rules.

o   All things are in the hand of the judiciary””peoples' lives, properties and

honor. If, God forbid, a judge is incompetent and dishonest, and this overwhelms peoples' consciences and virtues, you can imagine what the outcome will be.

o The judicial power should realize that it has to do with the lives, properties

     and honor of the people; thus, there must be honest and competent persons

     as judges and they must realize that a judge's offence, if deliberate, is

catastrophic; if it is due to mistake, it is still grievous.

o   No one has the right to interfere in a decree issued by a judge. Interference

in such decrees is against religion and preventing the enforcement of such decrees is also contrary to religious decrees.

o   The peoples' virtues and consciences are also in the hands of judges and

they should cultivate and educate them.

o   No judge may issue a ruling or edict if influenced by anger because a

decree issued in anger is neither rational nor lawful.

o   Today, a judge is responsible for the prestige of Islam and of the Islamic

Republic; it is no longer as before when a judge was answerable only for the sentence he had meted out.

o In the implementation of huditd  the limits ordained by God must not be

      transgressed in any manner.

o The condemned criminal on the way to the gallows is immune to all verbal

     or physical attacks; a perpetrator of such acts is an oppressor.

o Prisons should be training centers for the inmates.

o Islam decrees mercy to the prisoners even if they were cruel and spies.

o The judge and  the judicial  power are independent and  no one  may

      interfere in them.