The Yek Kalameh Lawyers Network, in collaboration with a team of legal scholars, lawyers, and experts from different fields of law, has launched an initiative to develop a proposed legal framework for Iran’s future—a framework designed to help establish and safeguard a sustainable democracy.

Drawing comparatively on the legal traditions and experiences of Iran, Canada, and European countries, and grounded in fundamental principles of human rights, secularism, equality, and justice, the project reviews existing laws and develops concrete proposals for fundamental legal reform in Iran.

A defining feature of this initiative is its starting point. Unlike many similar efforts that begin with drafting a constitution, Yek Kalameh has chosen to first examine laws that directly affect people’s everyday lives and their individual and social rights. Many of the legal inequalities that exist today are rooted in these laws.

For this reason, the project has prioritized a review of the Civil Code and laws governing family relations, inheritance, marriage, divorce, guardianship, child custody, wills, and citizenship. The goal is to identify and address structural forms of discrimination, reconsider the religious and jurisprudential foundations of these laws, and develop practical reform proposals suited to the needs of contemporary Iranian society—based on secularism, non-discrimination, and full equality before the law.

Mohammad Olyaee-Fard, a lawyer and member of the Yek Kalameh Lawyers Network, leads the project in collaboration with a team of lawyers and members of its legal and comparative law committees. The team continuously reviews existing legislation, assessing each provision in terms of whether it should be repealed, suspended, or amended, and develops specific recommendations for the Law of Tomorrow’s Iran.

The project’s proposals are intended to provide the legal foundations necessary for a transition away from religious authoritarianism and the current system of discrimination, and toward a modern, secular, and progressive legal order in a future democratic Iran. This framework is envisioned as one grounded in freedom and equality, human rights, social justice, democracy, sustainable development, and environmental justice.