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.