AL-Qadisiya Journal For Law and Political Sciences

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

https://doi.org/10.63677/jqlap.2025.164830.1426
Volume 17, Issue: 1 part 2
Spring 2026
Pages 1061-1084
AL-Qadisiya Journal For Law and Political Sciences

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Alaa abdulameer mousa 1
Muntather Kazim Abbas 2

1 College of Law, Al-Qadisiyah University

2 College 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
Crossmark
Subjects
  • Receive Date 05 September 2025
  • Accept Date 11 September 2025

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