The Journal of Iranian Health System Law

The Journal of Iranian Health System Law

The Legal Status of Individuals in a Vegetative State within Iran's Guardianship System: Nature, Lacunae, and Judicial Protection Mechanisms

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 dadgostari
2 Ardabil
Abstract
The vegetative state, as a nascent instance of complete loss of consciousness and volition, has disrupted the boundaries of classical legal concepts. An individual afflicted with this condition, owing to the absolute absence of cognitive faculties, is entirely incapable of exercising their rights, confronting the legal system with the fundamental question of which mechanism governs their guardianship and the administration of their affairs. In Iranian law, the lack of a specific statutory provision and the exhaustive enumeration of the grounds for legal incapacity under Article 1207 of the Civil Code have rendered the application of traditional guardianship institutions to this condition fraught with both theoretical and practical challenges. Adopting a descriptive-analytical method and drawing upon library resources and judicial precedent, this article assesses the capacities of existing institutions. The research findings demonstrate that the conventional jurisprudential-legal notion of "insanity" does not correspond to the vegetative state; nevertheless, by invoking Articles 104 and 105 of the Non-Contentious Proceedings Act, the broad concept of "inability to administer property," and the jurisprudential maxim "the ruler is the guardian of the incapable" (al-ḥākim walī al-mumtaniʿ), recourse may be had to the institution of appointing a judicial trustee (amīn). Within this framework, the competent court, upon the application of interested parties or the public prosecutor in the capacity of guardian of the public interest, proceeds to appoint a trustee with a defined scope of authority. A comparative study of the legal systems of England, France, and Germany further indicates a trajectory toward flexible judicial protections.
Keywords


Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 12 June 2026

  • Receive Date 26 May 2026
  • Accept Date 12 June 2026