The Inviolability of Private Life during the Investigation and Evidence Gathering Stage in Procedural Islamic Legislation

Abstract

The protection of people's private life requires that it not be violated unless there is an absolute necessity to do so for the sake of the public good in preserving security and maintaining stability or its right to require punishment. If this absolute necessity requires the sanctity of people's private lives be violated then it should be in accordance with standards and guidelines to ensure that this sanctity is not completely wiped out. This is to create a balance between the interest of the individual to protect his private life from infringement and violation and the interest of the Ummah to protect its security and its right to require punishment. This is not possible unless it is within a special procedural framework that is considered effectively to be a fence to protect the sanctity of private life. If justice is achieved by it and the scales of justice are balanced, then the very pillars of human life have been established. But if those scales are defective, then that is the edge of a deep pit, and how easily the best moral values can slip and fall into it. The investigative and evidence gathering procedures are considered a key means of the state in catching those who have broken the law, and must be in accordance with a set of procedures that it follows when a crime is committed in order to establish what really happened and to establish the authority of the state to punish. There is no doubt that some of these procedures may involve violating some individual rights, which is contrary to the presumed innocence of an individual; this is a presumption which mankind has made and is similar to the concept of a Muslim's innocence. Despite that, there are important criteria and guidelines for these procedures to protect the sanctity of people's private lives from any action taken by the public authority without legal support.