The Reforms of Ali Akbar Davar and Beyond, 1926–1941

Abstract

This chapter will consider the legal reforms that took place under Reza Shah and were largely the work of his dynamic minister of justice, Ali Akbar Khan Davar. It will begin with the political background to the construction of a modern bureaucratic state under Reza Shah before considering the legal reforms of Davar and some of his successors. After 1926, the social and political forces opposed to modernizing reforms were gradually subdued by Reza Shah. Thus the protracted political struggles and the Majles debates over the issue of legal reform that characterized the 1910s and early 1920s were less of a feature, making reform a smoother, if less interesting, process. Indeed, the detailed description of institutional reform in parts of this chapter makes for dry reading. Such accounts are, however, indispensable, partly to correct the many misconceptions and mistakes that have crept into the existing literature on the sequence of the reforms, but also because, especially in connection with Davar’s reforms, they are an expression of etatiste legality and highlight the centrality of legal and judicial reform to the state-building process.