This chapter highlights the centrality of the rule of law to Khatami’s presidential campaign. It then reviews the policies of the heads of the judiciary in the post-Khomeini era, with the most far-reaching reform initiatives occurring during the tenure of Shahroudi (1999–2009). These included trying to phase out special courts, prohibiting the security services from running their own detention and prison systems, ending the death penalty for minors, ending execution by stoning, strengthening the rights of political prisoners, and reforming the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. Many of these were reversed or watered down by Sadegh Larijani, head of the judiciary 2009–2019. Ebrahim Raisi (2019-2021) revived some of Shahroudi’s reforms in sentencing and also inaugurated a concerted effort to fight corruption in the judiciary. The chapter illustrates that the judiciary is not a monolith, and much of the quality of the rule of law stands and falls with its leading administrators and professionals.

Chapter 5 examines the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections, which brought moderate candidate Hassan Rouhani to power. Rouhani entered the 2013 election on an electoral platform that aimed to bring Iran out of international isolation as a means to improve the country’s dire economic crisis. With the exception of conservative hardliner Saeed Jalili, who campaigned on a religious, ideological platform, none of the candidates campaigned on the values and ideals of the revolution. The electoral fault-lines were predominately shaped around the economy, effective nuclear diplomacy and the establishment of détente foreign policies. This chapter will then explore the 2017 election, which was perhaps the most secular election in the Islamic Republic’s forty-year history. What was astonishing in this election was not what was said, but what was not said. None of the candidates dared to employ early revolutionary slogans. Certain phrases and concepts were missing from candidate campaigns, such as the dispossessed and disenfranchised, martyrdom, claims of being a true follower of the Supreme Leader, anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism. Through an exploration of these campaign discourses, this chapter will demonstrate that since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, electoral politics have tremendously evolved from Khomeini’s revolutionary religiosity to encompass liberal, secular values and ideals.