Jurisprudential, Legal and Medical Aspects of Criminal Growth and Its Determination as a Condition for Realizing Criminal Responsibility and Analysis of Iran's Criminal Law Approach

Abstract

A fundamental question regarding the discussion of the conditions for realizing criminal responsibility is whether criminal growth can also be proposed as another condition in addition to the conventional conditions (wisdom, maturity, free will(intention) and knowledge)? The discussion of this category is particularly important and has significant practical implications because logically, a substantive difference must be made between reason, maturity and criminal growth, although these three terms, in the eyes of the common people, are sometimes even used in the same sense. It is natural that identifying criminal growth as a condition for criminal responsibility, along with the other four conditions, can realize criminal responsibility in a more effective and fair way and objectify judicial justice in a more complete way. Although in some provisions, including Article 91 of the Islamic Penal Code, the legislator has referred to the concept of criminal growth, the Iranian penal system has not had an explicit and specific approach to the category of determining criminal growth as a condition for realizing criminal responsibility. The aim of this article is to examine the jurisprudential, legal and medical dimensions of criminal growth and determine it as a condition for the realization of criminal responsibility and to analyze the approach of Iranian criminal law towards this category in light of the conceptual and thematic analysis of the provision of Article 91 of the Islamic Penal Code.