Aligning the Supreme Court’s Institutional Structure with Its Raison d’Être in Different Legal Systems: The Case for Structural Reform of the Supreme Court of Iran and an End to Insular Rationality

Document Type : Academicm and Research

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Private and Economic Law, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.

10.22091/csiw.2026.13305.2689

Abstract

The Supreme Court occupies a significant, sensitive, and influential position within legal systems. As a judicial institution, it has the potential to bring about far-reaching developments in Iranian law. When properly designed in accordance with established institutional and legal criteria, the Supreme Court can, alongside legislation, play a critical role in securing the coherence and unity of the legal system. Disconnected elements cannot constitute a coherent legal system; accordingly, in modern legal orders, the Supreme Court serves, among other functions, to reduce divergences in judicial interpretation and to shape the legal trajectory of the country. Because institutional structure shapes institutional behavior, the structure of the Supreme Court influences the legal conduct of actors within the legal system. In other jurisdictions, the institutional structure of the Supreme Court has generally been designed in accordance with the purposes underlying its establishment. In Iran, however, the current structure of the Supreme Court has not only failed to achieve the objective of promoting coherence within a fragmented and dispersed legal system but has itself contributed to the emergence and perpetuation of divergent judicial practices. Consequently, substantive legal reform is unlikely to achieve its intended objectives without a corresponding reform of the existing structure of the Supreme Court of Iran. Employing a descriptive-analytical method, this article first examines the purposes underlying the establishment of the Supreme Courts of the United States, France, and Germany and then analyzes the institutional structures developed in those jurisdictions in light of those purposes. It subsequently examines the divergence between the intended purpose and institutional structure of the Supreme Court of Iran and their development since 1928, and puts forward proposals for reforming the Court’s institutional structure.

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References

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