Justice Before Power: Why the Order to Establish a Transitional Justice Committee Is One of the Most Important Tests of the Transition from the Islamic Republic S. Rouzbeh ۱۴۰۵/۰۱/۰۱ S. Rouzbeh examines the announcement of a committee to design a transitional justice framework for Iran, its potential benefits, and the legal, political and practical challenges it will face. S. Rouzbeh Why, amid today’s many crises, did Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi begin at this particular point? Why, before speaking about a future government, did he speak first of justice, courts, truth-seeking and the legal framework for the transition? These two questions lie at the heart of the significance of the order establishing the “Committee for Drafting a Transitional Justice Framework in Iran”—a committee whose formation Reza Pahlavi announced on 16 March 2026, stating that Shirin Ebadi would chair it. According to what has been published, the committee is to lay the groundwork for two main pillars: a framework for a court to hear cases involving serious crimes, and a framework for a truth-seeking mechanism to record and document decades of repression under the Islamic Republic. The announcement also mentioned the participation of figures such as Iraj Mesdaghi, Afshin Ellian and Leila Bahmani. The significance of this step lies not simply in the fact that it has been announced. It lies in the fact that, for the first time, discussion of the transition from the Islamic Republic is moving one step beyond aspiration and protest towards designing a legal order for the period after its collapse. In politics, the departure of a government is only the beginning. The real questions start the day after: what will replace disorder? Which laws will have authority? What should be done about those responsible for torture, executions, street killings, the repression of women, the plunder of public assets and organised corruption? And how can a balance be struck between seeking justice and maintaining stability? This is where we can understand why justice has been put on the table before power. If a government collapses without any prior clarity about what should happen to the crimes, the victims, the repressive institutions and the legal system, the country will enter a legal fog—a fog in which personal revenge can flourish, political deals can be struck over the blood of victims, officials can escape accountability, and the running of the country can be paralysed. In United Nations literature, transitional justice is a set of judicial and non-judicial mechanisms for addressing the legacy of widespread human rights violations. These include criminal prosecutions, truth-seeking, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence through institutional and legal reform. More recent UN documents likewise emphasise this pragmatic, rights-based approach, regarding it as a means of building a fairer and more stable future. From this perspective, the order establishing the committee has several clear advantages. First, it sends an important political message: transition means not only collapse, but also preparation to govern the day after. That is no small difference. For years, much of Iran’s opposition has spoken more about the departure of the Islamic Republic than about how Iran should be governed afterwards. This step says that unless we start planning now for day zero, the day after the regime falls may turn not into liberation but into chaos. This shift in perspective is an advantage in itself. The second advantage is that it helps prevent the concept of justice from splintering. If justice is not defined in advance, it can quickly fracture: one group will demand immediate trials, another will fear revenge, some will call for forgiveness, while others will try to consign everything to oblivion. But if transitional justice is designed properly, it assigns a clear role to each element: courts to determine criminal responsibility, a truth-seeking mechanism to record testimony and evidence, a reparations programme for victims, and a vetting and rebuilding programme for compromised institutions. This separation prevents political confusion and moves the debate from emotion towards rules. The third advantage is that such a step can reassure society and even the country’s administrative apparatus that the day after the Islamic Republic will not plunge the country into a lawless jungle. This is extremely important. A successful transition cannot be achieved through street enthusiasm alone. Civil servants, judges, officers, middle managers and technical staff also need to know that everything will not collapse and that a temporary legal passage will be in place to carry the country through this stage. In this context, the choice of members does not seem accidental either. Shirin Ebadi’s presence gives the process legal weight and international credibility. The message behind this choice is clear: future justice is not to be built on anger and blind revenge, but must speak the language of law, due-process standards and human rights values. Iraj Mesdaghi’s presence adds another dimension: bringing documented memories of imprisonment, repression and killings to the legal table. This is an important distinction. Without memory, justice becomes hollow. Alongside these two, the presence of Afshin Ellian and Leila Bahmani suggests that this discussion is not to remain at the level of political slogans, but is intended to move towards institutional design and engagement with recognised legal standards. In plain terms, this composition seeks to strike a balance among lived experience, legal credibility, institutional expertise and international support. Yet as significant as the advantages are, the challenges are formidable too. The first is a crisis of legitimacy at the national level. If this committee is to serve as a basis for public trust on the day of transition, it must show that it does not speak only for one political circle or one segment of the exile community. Transitional justice will falter if it is not national in scope. Victims, families seeking justice, women, minorities, former prisoners and even sections of the country’s professional workforce must feel that this process sees them. UN documents themselves also stress the need for meaningful national consultations in transitional justice processes. The second challenge is the legal vacuum. Article 4 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic stipulates that all laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria, compliance with which is determined by the jurists of the Guardian Council. This means that the existing system’s legal authority rests, at its very foundation, on Islamic jurisprudence. If the Islamic Republic collapses, this pillar will collapse too. At that moment, oppressive and discriminatory laws cannot be retained in the name of preserving order; but nor can the country be left without laws. A committee of this kind must therefore begin work now on a temporary legal framework: which laws should be suspended immediately, which provisions should temporarily remain in force, and which fundamental rights must be guaranteed from day one. The third challenge is determining the scope of prosecutions. If all officials of the system are thrown into the same basket, the transition will be paralysed from the outset. No country has built a stable government through indiscriminate, wholesale purges. A distinction must be made between those who ordered and carried out serious crimes, and the administrative and technical workforce who merely worked within a compromised structure but did not themselves commit major crimes. If this boundary is not made clear, justice will become a hammer rather than a remedy. The fourth challenge is the relationship between truth-seeking and trials. They are not the same. Truth-seeking is necessary to clarify patterns of repression, record victims’ accounts and build a national memory. A court, however, is where individual criminal responsibility is determined. If the two are conflated, both truth and due process will suffer. This is precisely where careful legal design is needed, not slogans. The fifth challenge is economic justice—a dimension that, if ignored, will not allow public anger to subside. The issue is not only torture and executions. The Islamic Republic has not only repressed people’s bodies; it has also plundered and run down public assets, national opportunities and the country’s infrastructure. If transitional justice cannot make provision for recovering some of the stolen assets, repairing public harm and restoring economic trust, the pursuit of justice will seem incomplete to many people. So what should be done in the first 100 days? Realism dictates that we should not expect this period to produce a final legal system. The aim of the first 100 days is to save the country from falling into lawlessness. Several vital steps must be taken during this period: the immediate suspension of punishments and practices that are openly contrary to fundamental rights, including torture, political executions, coerced confessions and show trials; a clear definition of the boundary between a truth-seeking mechanism and a court; prioritisation of the most serious crimes and their principal instigators; and the preservation of a minimum level of continuity in public services and the administrative apparatus, so that the country does not fall apart. In other words, everything need not be resolved in the first 100 days, but everything must be prevented from getting worse. Meanwhile, others can also play a role. Lawyers, researchers, advocacy groups, victims’ families, administrative experts, honourable officers and managers, and even Iranians living abroad can contribute to documenting evidence, drafting legal proposals, designing intelligent vetting mechanisms, and helping to build temporary institutions. Transitional justice is not one person’s or one office’s project. If it does not become a national undertaking, it will not succeed. Alongside these measures, one option worth considering is the model of “hybrid courts”. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights defines these courts as institutions combining national and international elements, drawing both on domestic law and on international standards and personnel, and usually operating in the country where the crimes took place. Examples of this model have been seen in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, East Timor and Kosovo. Its advantage is that it can, on the one hand, improve the impartiality and quality of proceedings and, on the other, keep the process rooted in the society concerned. But this model is neither cost-free nor trouble-free, and in many cases it has faced political, financial and practical problems. So if it is ever considered for Iran, it must be designed narrowly and precisely, with a focus on major crimes—not as a magic solution to everything. Ultimately, this committee’s real value lies not merely in saying that criminals must be punished. That is true, but it is not enough. Its value lies in addressing the most difficult question facing Iran after the Islamic Republic: how can a legal order be built from the ruins of an ideological system that delivers justice, is acceptable and enduring, and prevents authoritarianism from being reproduced in a new guise? If the order to establish a transitional justice committee leads to a practical plan for day zero and the first 100 days, it could become one of the most important foundation stones of the future government. But if it remains no more than a news item, a name and a statement, it will become a respectable showcase, unable to hold up the roof when the real collapse comes. Its importance, then, lies in cooperation among all scholars and lawyers, in bringing their views together, and, above all, in how the law is implemented and enforced. Why is the order to establish a transitional justice committee one of the most important tests of the transition from the Islamic Republic? In Iran after the Islamic Republic, the first battle will not be over power; it will be over the definition of law. And in that battle, the first stone is not power, but justice. Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-f23e31c9-0d0a-c496-9642-379716774c15 Please credit the author and link to this edition.