September 06, 2019
Although the Majlis voted several months ago to make blood money payment for men and women equal, the 12-man Council of Guardians did not approve that law—but the Supreme Court has now invented a legal work-around that will assure that women are paid an equal sum, although not by the person who harms them.
Blood money or diyeh has always been a feature of Islamic law. It is one of several provisions that treat women as having half the value of men.
Under the law, a person who does harm to another must pay “blood money” to the victim under a formula that makes the payment higher the greater the harm done. But for doing identical harm to a woman, the blood money payment is discounted by half.
This became an issue many decades ago with many women in Iran and has only escalated since the revolution.
Last year, the Majlis voted to equalize payments for men and women. The Council of Guardians said the half-payment for women was fixed in Sharia law and the Majlis could not equalize payments.
But the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) reports that the Supreme Court has now intervened and has ruled that, while the criminal need only pay the half-rate diyeh to the victim, the other half must be paid to the female victim by the government-run Fund for Bodily Injuries.
CHRI said, “In its ruling, the Supreme Court justices essentially devised a way to circumvent a grossly discriminatory law without triggering opposition from the conservative Guardian Council. But it comes at a price: Using public funds that come in from judicial fees and traffic fines to save a discriminatory law.
“Indeed, the inequality between men and women in Iran, which is the basis of many Islamic theological principles and applied as law in Iran in such matters as witness testimony, divorce, custody, inheritance and blood money, remains.
“Compensating for the difference in blood money reduces the discriminatory impact but it does not change the cultural and social norm that still protects the state’s underlying premise of inequality between men and women. In this way, it encourages the continuation of discrimination against women,” the CHRI said.
Different courts had been reported giving different interpretations on the diyeh law, which CHRI said prompted the Supreme Court to intervene and lay down a single standard.