The challenges of criminal responses to the crimes of legal entities in Iran's legal system

Considering the increase and expansion of legal entities and commercial companies in today's society and considering that the nature of legal entities is different from natural persons, the type and function of criminal response to the crimes of legal entities should also be consistent with their nature. Such an issue requires updating the laws in the field of identifying the criminal liability of legal entities and punishing them accordingly.
In the opinion, the only punishment that could be applied to legal entities was a fine; However, after examining the types of punishments, jurists introduced other types of punishments as appropriate punishments for legal entities. For example, the punishment of dissolution of a legal entity was considered equivalent to the death penalty and the temporary closure of its activity was considered equivalent to imprisonment.
In the last century, Iran's criminal law, in accordance with the movement of advanced countries towards the recognition of criminal liability for legal entities, has dealt with the identification of criminal liability for legal entities in a scattered manner in special laws and has established different approaches in each of them. For example, in Article 220 of the Trade Law, Article 4 of the Law on Medical and Pharmaceutical Affairs and Food and Beverage Regulations approved in 1995, and Article 17 of the discretionary punishments (Tazirat) Law approved in 1988, it is stipulated that a legal person should be sentenced regardless of the natural persons related to it. However, in some articles, such as Article 8 of the Law on Translation of Books, Publications and Audio Works approved in 1973 and Article 109 of the Social Security Law approved in 1975, the responsibility resulting from the commission of a crime by legal entities has been directed at the natural persons related to them. The computer crimes law approved in 2018 is also one of the important special laws in which the criminal liability of legal entities is currently recognized under articles 747 and 748 of the Islamic Penal Code (Tazirat), with a clear mechanism than other laws. Article 67 and 70 of the Anti-Smuggling of Goods and Currency Law deal with the issue of criminal responsibility of legal entities in the crime of smuggling of goods and currency and has differential accountability for their crimes. Also, article 500 of the supplementary Islamic Penal Code (Tazirat) 2019, in stating the criminal responsibility of a legal entity for financing groups based on psychological inductions and mind control methods, has determined a separate punishment for the legal entity.
Despite the identification of criminal liability for legal entities in the above special laws, Article 143 of the Islamic Penal Code approved in 2012 has stated the conditions of criminal liability of legal entities, and its articles 20 to 22 have also stipulated the punishments of legal entities and some conditions for their implementation.
The punishments mentioned in the mentioned Article 20, according to the classification of punishments in Article 19 of the same law, include levels from the most severe to the mildest level of punishments. The ideal approach for the seven clauses of Article 20 of the Islamic Penal Code of 2013 is that the punishments mentioned in it should be a comprehensive range of punishments appropriate for legal entities. This is despite the fact that, as will be stated, out of the seven reactions mentioned, in some cases, only two or three may be applicable, which without doubt cannot be a reasonable, proportionate and effective reaction to various crimes. In order to remedy this damage, it is suggested that, like Article 14 of the Islamic Penal Code and Article 67 of the Anti-Smuggling of Goods and Currency Law approved in 2012, the legislator is only in the position of classifying punishments and leaves the establishment of competence to determine the punishment to specific laws in each field.
Based on the above, in this research, an attempt is made to answer the main question with a descriptive-analytical method and using library resources, that the guarantee of the criminal executions mentioned in Article 20 of the Islamic Penal Code 2013 to respond to the crimes committed by legal entities, What challenges does it face? For this purpose, an effort is made to analyze the punishments in the aforementioned article one by one, theoretically and practically. In order to answer the main question of the research, these sub-questions will also be answered, whether the punishments mentioned in the Islamic Penal Code of 1392 have the necessary variety? Can the mentioned punishments be placed in proportion to all types of crimes from all types of legal entities? What are the problems faced by the legislator's statements to specify the mentioned punishments? In this regard, the structure of the research is compiled based on the punishments mentioned in Article 20, and the mentioned punishments are analyzed case by case, and then suggestions are presented to correct the mentioned challenges.
In order to mention some of the suggestions resulting from the findings of the research, the following can be mentioned: 1. In order to achieve the goals of punishment, managers and shareholders of dissolved legal entities should be prohibited from forming, representing or establishing a new legal entity; 2. The criterion mentioned in Article 21 of the Islamic Penal Code regarding a monetary penalty equal to two to four times the monetary penalty of natural persons should be removed and another indicator such as a percentage of the average financial turnover of a legal entity in several years leading to the crime considered by the judge to determine the amount of the monetary penalty. take In cases where the amount of the fine for the real person who committed the crime has not been determined, an index for the amount of the fine should be determined; 3. In banning one or more professional or social activities, banning public invitations to increase capital and banning the issuance of certain commercial documents, it is appropriate to modify the ban period: with the explanation that the possibility of banning for more than five years and less than to exist permanently; 4. It is necessary that the cases of the court's decision to publish the conviction in the media are limited to specific cases based on the severity of the crime committed or its repetition. Also, the types of media desired by the legislator, such as written or visual, the number of levels of publication, the separation of national and local media are suggested.