Special Clerical Court, or Special Court for Clerics ( , dādgāh-ye vizheh-ye ruhāniyat) is a special Iranian judicial system for prosecuting crimes, both ordinary and political, committed by Islamic clerics and scholars. The Special Clerical Court can defrock and disbar Islamic jurists, give sentences of imprisonment, corporal punishment, execution, etc. The court functions independently of the regular Iranian judicial framework, and is accountable only to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei. The most senior Islamic politician to be prosecuted and sentenced to prison since the Iranian Revolution was Abdollah Nouri (Persian: عبدالله نوری) who was sentenced to five years in prison for political and religious dissent by the court in 1999. The Court was established in the early 1980s on an ad hoc basis, subsequently phased out, and then re-established in 1987. It was fully institutionalized and endowed with a "code" in 1991 under Supreme Leader Khamenei. This code was revised and expanded in 2005. In addition to a Special Court for the Clerics, there is also a Special prosecutor for the clerics who is also appointed by the Supreme Leader and sometimes conflated with the court. According to scholar Mirjam Künkler, "since the mid-1990s ... the court has been used increasingly as an instrument for the suppression of dissident clerics, and at times even non-clerical culprits." History Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini began to set up a "special clerical court" to "defend Islam" and deal with those whom he called "corrupt clerics" within months of the February–March 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. During the early years of the Iranian revolution (the "first phase" of the court), ad hoc courts were established to deal with "criminal" acts committed by members of the clergy. These were to be "tribunals formed of three clerics and two local elders" according to Radio Farda. In 1979 clergies were punished "under charges such as dependence on the Former Royal Court, the praising the Pahlavi dynasty, or the cooperation with SAVAK." In the Court's "second phase", from the beginning of 1980, it pursued its work with more discipline. In the late 1980s, the court was officially established in Qom. Crimes prosecuted were acts aimed against the consolidation of power under Ayatollah Khomeini, as well as those committed by "black sheep" who broke traditional rules and harmed "the image of the clergy", according to Radio Farda. As the new judicial structure of the