Jurisprudential–Legal Analysis of the Preservation of Monetary Value in Bank Facilities and Its Relation to Commutative Justice

Abstract

Preservation of monetary value in bank facilities refers to the use of contractual or statutory mechanisms aimed at compensating for the reduction in purchasing power caused by inflation in the repayment of monetary debts. The relationship between this concept and commutative justice concerns whether adjusting the repayment amount in order to maintain the economic balance between contractual counter-performances is compatible with the principles of Imami jurisprudence and the legal doctrines governing contracts, or whether it conflicts with rules such as the prohibition of usury (riba), the binding force of contracts, and the nominalistic principle of money. The central issue of the present study is to examine the possibility or impossibility of providing a jurisprudential and legal justification for clauses preserving monetary value in banking facilities and to clarify their relationship with commutative justice within the Iranian legal system. The research was conducted using a descriptive–analytical method with an ijtihadi–critical approach, and data collection tools included library research, analysis of statutory documents, juristic opinions, and advisory legal doctrines. In the analytical section, relying on principles such as the rule of no harm (la darar), the negation of hardship and excessive difficulty, contractual stipulations, and the rule of justice, the foundations for the adjustment of monetary obligations were evaluated. The research gap in this field lies in the absence of a coherent analysis of the relationship between commutative justice and inflation-compensation mechanisms within the framework of Imami jurisprudence and Iranian banking law, as most existing studies have either addressed the issue solely from an economic perspective or examined it from a purely jurisprudential viewpoint without connecting it to the theory of commutative justice. The findings indicate that, by distinguishing between usury and compensation for the real depreciation of property value, preservation of monetary value may be justified in pursuit of commutative justice through the design of transparent contractual clauses based on official economic indices. Finally, it is recommended that the legislator enact explicit regulations concerning the indexation of monetary debts and strengthen supervision over banking contracts in order to prevent interpretive conflicts and practical injustices.