Judicial and Legal Investigation of Murdering Arising from Uncertainty in Target with a View on Islamic Penal Code

Subject Areas : Private law

Kiyoumars kalantari ¹ , Farshad shirzadifar ²

1 - دانشگاه مازندران
2 - دانشگاه مازندران

Received: 2017-05-02 Accepted : 2017-05-02 Published : 2017-05-02

Keywords: Uncertainty on target, Punishable, Respectful, Error murder, Intentional murder,

Abstract :

Uncertainty or error in word means mistake, ignorance and unawareness. And in legal sense it means that the murderer targets an objective person but hits somebody else and kills him/her for any reason including lack of skill or involuntary causes. In respect to the impact of error in target on nature of murder, it seems two modes should be distinguished: 1- If a person intends to shoot on a punishable thing, animal or person and his shoot would go wrong and hit a respectful one, in this case the murder is considered as pure error.2- If a person intends to shoot on a respectful one, but his shoot would go wrong and kill another respectful person, this case is assumed as intentional murder according to criminal rights logic. Regarding Shiite jurists view on error in targeting, most of them assume this kind of murder as pure error without distinguishing between shooting to a punishable or a respectful person. The same case is seen in Article 296 Islamic Penal Code (1370). Fortunately, by deleting old article 296 and registering Clause “D” Article 290, the new legislator has been trying to declare that error in targeting where both primary and final target are respectful persons, has no impact on the nature of murder (as according to Article 294, error in identity has no impact on the nature of murder) because if we accept that legislator’s goal is to protect each person not one or some specific one (s), then there is no difference who would be murdered at the end. The important point is that a respectful person is murdered so the murder is considered as intentional murder.