13 February 2012 :

Iranian news agencies reported that Iran's Guardian Council, a powerful body of clerics and lawyers that vets parliamentary activity and makes certain it corresponds with Islamic (Sharia) law, had approved a new amendment to the country's penal code which had been passed into law by the MPs.
The new penal code – which will come into effect after being signed by the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – would ban the death penalty for juvenile offenders and execution by stoning for those convicted of adultery. According to the new penal code, a married woman who was convicted of adultery would be hanged rather than stoned to death. In addition, the new code would ban the death penalty for teenagers under 18 who have yet to reach "intellectual maturity."
“In the new law the age of 18 (solar year) is for both gender and offenders under the age would be considered as juvenile and would be sentenced on a separate law than of adults,” Amin-Hossein Rahimi, lawmaker from Malayer and spokesman of the judiciary commission of the parliament, was quoted as saying, referring to the current law that treats boys of 15 years and girls of 9 years fully responsible for their crimes.
However, on 13 February, the Guardian reported that experts who have studied the new code questioned the claims that Iran had fully abolished the death penalty for those convicted under the age of 18 or abandoned its use of stoning.
According to the report, under the new code, the death sentence has been removed for juveniles only in crimes whose punishment can be administered at the discretion of the judge (such as drug offences). Under the same law, however, a death sentence may still be applied for a juvenile if he or she has committed Hudud offenses that are defined as "claims of God" and therefore have mandatory sentences (such as sodomy, rape, theft, fornication, apostasy and consumption of alcohol for the third time). All other offenses are defined as "claims of [His] servants," and responsibility for prosecution rests on the victim. This includes murder, which is treated as a private dispute between the murderer and the victim's heirs, who are given the right to forgive the murderer, or demand compensation (Diyya) or demand execution of the murderer (Qisas).
A decision on whether such a death sentence for a juvenile can be issued relies on the "judge's knowledge" – a loophole that allows for subjective judicial rulings where no conclusive evidence is present, the Guardian said in its report.
Amnesty International's Iran researcher Drewery Dyke told the Guardian: "Let's not be fooled by this seeming suggestion of improvements to Iran's penal code. The penal code still allows for stoning to be carried out. Child offenders are still at risk of being placed on death row, and men and women can still be convicted on grounds of consensual extramarital and same-sex relations."
Confusion over Iran's definition of a juvenile has also added to the complexity of the issue, said Raha Bahreini, a fellow at Amnesty International Canada. The country does not provide a clear distinction between the age of majority – when minors cease to legally be considered children – and the minimum age of criminal responsibility, which is 15 for boys and nine for girls under Iranian law. "Iran's penal system has often taken the minimum age of criminal responsibility for the age of majority," she said, "thus allowing individuals under the age of 18 to be treated and sentenced as adults as soon they reach the minimum age of criminal responsibility."
 
Experts also believe the amendments have complicated some other parts of the law, especially the punishment of homosexuality, the British daily reported. Sodomy for men was punishable by death for all individuals involved in consensual sexual intercourse, but under the new amendments the person who played an active role will be flogged 100 times if the sex was consensual and he was not married, but the one who played a passive role will still be put to death regardless of his marriage status.
According to the old penal code, people convicted of having an "illicit relationship outside marriage" would be sentenced to death by stoning. The new code, however, still considers "adultery while married" as a crime but has not designated any punishment for it, thus referring the judge to the fatwa of a reliable cleric (the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in this case) for a decision. Khamenei has not yet issued a fatwa for such a crime, but all other clerics in the country order stoning as its punishment. It would be highly unlikely that Khamenei would contradict his fellow clerics.
"It's simply a trick," Shadi Sadr, a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer exiled in London, told the Guardian. "They've removed death by stoning from the penal code but in reality it remains in place."
The new penal code does not mention stoning as punishment for any crime but it does refer to it twice in a section about the criminal procedure rules and conditions under which such a punishment can be administered.
"The fact that stoning has been mentioned in the criminal procedures of administrating the punishment – it shows they are truly expecting the method to be used in future," Sadr said.