Recovery of Obtainable Benefits Damages in the 2013 Criminal Procedure Code and Iranian Judicial Practice with a View to English Law

Abstract

According to the principles of Islamic law, all harms and injuries inflicted upon a person’s dignity, body, and psyche must be remedied through compensation. Damage may be material or non-material (moral). As a result of such harm, a benefit may be lost, which is referred to as “obtainable benefits.” Under the law, only those damages that arise directly and without intermediary from the commission of a crime are recoverable. Only the loss of profit that is considered obtainable is compensable, whereas non-obtainable loss of profit is not subject to recovery. The boundary between loss of profit and obtainable benefits is highly subtle, to the extent that some scholars consider them identical. With respect to the jurisprudential and legal foundations of compensating damages for obtainable benefits, principles such as causation, the rule of no harm (la darar), and destruction (itlaf) are applicable. According to Note 2 of Article 14 of the Iranian Criminal Procedure Code enacted in 2013, the recovery of obtainable benefits is permissible in cases of bodily harm. This position has been accepted by many jurists and Islamic legal scholars. However, in English law, it must be noted that there is no fundamental distinction between civil and criminal damages; in both cases, the injured party is restored, through tort claims, to the position prior to the commission of the wrongful act, and the perpetrator is held liable for compensation. In English law, considering the principles of damage and harmful conduct, and in the presence of multiple causes, causation is determined based on the degree of fault under theories such as contributory negligence, and claims are adjudicated accordingly. In light of the foregoing, it appears that Iranian and English legal systems differ significantly in this regard.