Hint: Hujjatul Islam, Dr. Ghulamreza Payvandi was born in 1967 in Mahdishahr, Semnan, lran. After leaving for Qum, in addition to seminary courses, he also pursued legal topics at the university and obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal law and criminology from Qum University and his doctorate in criminal law from Mutahhari University. In addition to his main expertise, which is criminal law, he has been concerned with civil rights for many years. A member of the Scientific Council of the Citizenship Jurisprudence Department of the Contemporary Jurisprudence Institute, in this conversation, he tries to fully explain the jurisprudence of citizenship rights and state its nature, dimensions, headings and network of issues. The details of the conversation with the faculty member of the Research Institute of Islamic Culture and Thought are as follows:

What is the jurisprudence of citizenship rights and what are its requirements?

Prof. Payvandi: In the discussion of citizenship rights, considering that this term is hybrid, the field of citizenship rights must first be conceptually and terminologically defined, and then its jurisprudential and legal aspects should be discussed; It means to take rights here in the meaning of right or rights, and then when the jurisprudence discussion is done, we should say “jurisprudence and citizenship rights”.

But sometimes the meaning of “rights” in “citizenship law jurisprudence” is considered as rights meaning regulations. In other words, the mutual relationship that exists between citizens and society or the government is the same relationship between jurisprudence and citizenship rights, in such a way that we consider jurisprudence and rights in the sense of regulations, rules, rulings, works, etc., and then the word of citizenship is added to it as an additional element of jurisprudence and law.

With this explanation, citizenship rights are a set of rights, whether civil, political, social, cultural or judicial rights that people have as citizens of a society. This causes these rights to be geographically limited, because it is raised against a government and it is the government that must respect these rights in relation to its citizens.

One of the problems of this discussion is that it is not a clear and precise discussion conceptually, unlike the term human rights or children’s rights or women’s rights, which are well-known and well-established terms in the field of jurisprudence.

But here, the word citizen is not very clear. In my opinion, of course, a citizen means a person who belongs to a society and a government in a geography, who has a set of rights; Rights that are discussed both in the knowledge of law and in the knowledge of jurisprudence.

What is the difference between citizenship rights and human rights?

Prof. Payvandi: An important point should be noted and that: when we talk about human rights, we mean the rights of human beings, as mentioned in human rights documents and sources; It means the rights that every human being has regardless of his nationality, regardless of his political relationship with a government, and regardless of race and generation and so on. These rights are called human rights.

But when we say citizenship rights, it means the rights of a person who is a citizen of a society and that society. For example, he is a citizen of Iran, he is a citizen of France, he is a citizen of Türkiye, he is a citizen of Iraq. This citizen, according to the late Mr. Dehkhuda, was actually blockade; It means, in fact, it was related to a place that was later renamed to Citizen!

A citizen is someone whose characteristic feature of citizenship is citizenship; That is, it has the citizenship of a political system. For example, we say this is an Iranian citizen, this is an Iraqi citizen, this is a French citizen; But in human rights, we do not have such a thing, but for example, it is said that a human being is a human being, regardless of whether he is an Iranian citizen or a French citizen or anyone else, what rights does he have, for example, he has the right to live.

Of course, in terms of examples, some citizenship rights and human rights may overlap. For example, in human rights, the issue of the right to employment is discussed. There is also this debate in citizenship rights, but the difference lies in the fact that in human rights, the absoluteness of human being is the subject of discussion, but in citizenship rights, it is looked at as a citizen of a specific society.

What is the difference between citizenship rights and citizenship rights?

Prof. Payvandi: The rights of citizenship, as I have explained, are, in fact, the political relationship of an individual and a government; It means a person’s relationship with the society in which he lives in that geographical area. Now it may be a village or a town or a city. All these are citizens.

Therefore, citizen, in the concept of citizenship rights, is not reserved for those who live in the city, but what is important is its nationality for a geographical area; whether that area is a city or a village or anywhere else, but the rights of urbanism mean the rights that only the residents of the cities enjoy, whether they are citizens of that region or whether they belong to another country and, for example, are present in that city as a tourist.

What are the headings of jurisprudence and citizenship rights?

Prof. Payvandi: I emphasize again that when you say “jurisprudence of citizenship rights”, it has one meaning, but when you say “jurisprudence and citizenship rights”, it will have another meaning that I explained first, but if we mean what the jurisprudence of citizenship rights has, there are substantive and conceptual discussions here; Like, what is the nature of this right, in terms of jurisprudence? Does it require homework or not? Is the right here the privileges that a citizen has or does it mean something else?

Therefore, what is meant by “right” in the title of the discussion is very important. After the meaning of “right” is defined and the thematic analysis is done, then we go to its rulings.

What are the most important issues of this jurisprudence?

Prof. Payvandi: The basis of your previous question is also the basis of this question. In other words, to answer this question, we must first refer to the methodological issues.

For example, the meaning of “citizen” in citizenship law may be different from “citizen” in jurisprudence. A citizen in citizenship rights means a person who has the citizenship of a country, even if he does not live in that country, but does the jurists mean the same thing about citizen? Do Muslim jurists also grant citizenship rights to non-Shi’ah? What for non-Muslims?

It seems that until the answers to these questions are clarified, it is not possible to talk about the topics or the network of jurisprudence issues of citizenship rights.

What is the relationship between citizenship rights and human rights?

Prof. Payvandi: To answer this question, the meaning of the word “right” must be clarified first. Sometimes rights mean the rules and regulations that govern a citizen; such as civil law, business law and criminal law.

However, it seems that the meaning of the word “rights” in the term “citizenship rights” does not mean “regulations”. Rather, it means the privileges that a citizen enjoys. Here, citizenship rights are very close to the concept of human rights. For example, women’s and children’s rights are both human rights and citizenship rights.

Therefore, citizenship rights, despite their differences with human rights, also have similarities to them.

Prof. Payvandi: 100%. Human rights and citizenship rights, in terms of examples, are compatible in many places, but in the same cases, the point of discussion is different. For example, a right is sometimes discussed in the sense that it is the right of a human to be human, in which case it is human rights, but sometimes it is discussed from the point of view that the right belongs to the citizens. Here, it falls under the category of citizenship rights.

This interview is a part of the electronic magazine “Fundamentals of Civil Rights Jurisprudence” which was produced in collaboration with the Ijtihad Network website.