The legislative wisdom behind unifying the rules of evidence - a critical study

Mousa, Alaa Abdulameer; Abbas, Muntather Kazim

doi:10.63677/jqlap.2025.164830.1426

	The legislative wisdom behind unifying the rules of evidence - a critical study
AL-Qadisiya Journal For Law and Political Sciences
Article 50, Volume 17, Issue: 1 part 2, June 2026, Pages 1061-1084 PDF (637.8 K)
Document Type: Research Paper
DOI: 10.63677/jqlap.2025.164830.1426
Authors
Alaa abdulameer mousa^* ¹; Muntather Kazim Abbas²
¹College of Law, Al-Qadisiyah University
²College of Law, University of Al-Qadisiyah
Abstract
During the transition from a capitalist to a socialist system, the Iraqi legislator made a major change to the commercial legal system. This was outlined in the Legal Reform Law No. 35 of 1977, which mandated the unification of evidence rules. This led to the issuance of the Iraqi Evidence Law No. 107 of 1979, which unified civil and commercial evidence rules. The legislator explained that the purpose of this unification was to establish equality and simplify formalities. The Iraqi legislator considered the freedom of proof to create inequality between creditors and debtors, causing a gap and imbalance in legal positions. This justified intervention to abolish this freedom and balance the scales by unifying evidence rules and narrowing the principle of freedom of will. Regarding the simplification of formalities, while consolidating substantive and procedural rules into one law was a step toward this goal, and despite rules granting the court a positive role, the abolition of the freedom of proof and the imposition of restrictions on evidence contradict the simplification of formalities.
Keywords
Unification; Freedom; Evidence; Equality; Simplification

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