Law 19983 on

Modernization process in Iran began in 19th century by Iranian officials like Abbas Mirza Ghaem Magham and Amir Kabir in order to change the traditional structure of government and replace it with a new and modern one. After the establishment of Pahlavi dynasty, the process of modernization continued by Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah. After the victory of Islamic revolution of 1979 modernization didn’t stop and continued until now. Some argue that  “Becoming modern meant destroying religious tradition” in the context of Reza shahs power. This is argued based on the multiple norms set in place which undermined islamic traditions, such as the when shah made the religious court subservient to civil courts thereby secularizing justice system. Despite the removal of such religious courts however, the actual efforts leading to modernization of the country by Reza Shah were due to

Under the secularist reign of Reza Shah many changes were made in Iran's judicial system, and the establishment of a fixed written law with appeals courts was one of them. In March 1926, Minister of Judicial Affairs dissolved Iran's entire judiciary, with the approval of the parliament, and initiating a wave of fundamental restructuring reforms with the aid of French judicial experts. By April 1927 Iran had 600 newly appointed judges. Minister of Judicial Affairs subsequently attempted to expand the new system into other cities of Iran by involving training of 250 judges.. Reza Shah represented his legal reforms as "tentative experiments" and allowed the religious judges to keep their courts for matters such as inheritance. In 1936, however, the new system was made permanent and the religious courts were abolished. However, there were still sharia courts that ruled on issues of family and inheritance up to the Islamic Revolution (working alongside secular ones). Some aspects of sharia law were also unofficially retained in criminal law, for example compensation in was still unofficially given in a similar manner to blood money, in exchange for pardoning a murder death sentence in some cases.