News ID: 128

Date: 17 October 2021 - 12:17

Article 4

The Constitutional Council’s board members held a meeting on July 4, 2007 and reached a unanimous interpretive opinion about Articles 4, 91, and 99 of the Constitution.

No. 86/30/21934

Date: July 10, 2007

By His name, the Most High

Dear Mr. Kadkhodaei,

With reference to your inquiry letter of June 30, 2007 about which authority has the responsibility of deciding on the Guardian Council’s administrative, employment-related, financial and organizational rules and regulations, and with respect to Article 98 and provision 19 of the Council’s statutes, the issue was raised and discussed during a regular meeting on July 4, 2007 and the Council’s interpretive opinion regarding Articles 4, 91, and 99 is as follows:

Benefiting from Articles 4, 91, and 99 of the Constitution, the responsibility of approving the Guardian Council’s administrative, employment-related, financial and organizational rules and regulations is vested with the Council itself.

Ahmad Jannati

Secretary of Guardian Council

Mr. Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, a jurist member of the Council and the body’s former spokesperson, referred the query to the Guardian Council on June, 30, 2007.

*Article 4: All civil, penal financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria. This principle applies absolutely and generally to all articles of the Constitution as well as to all other laws and regulations, and the wise persons (fuqaha') of the Guardian Council are judges in this matter.

*Article 91: With a view to safeguard the Islamic ordinances and the Constitution, in order to examine the compatibility of the legislation passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly with Islam, a council to be known as the Guardian Council is to be constituted with the following composition:

Six just religious men [fuqaha'] and conscious of the present needs and the issues of the day, to be selected by the Leader, and

Six jurists, specializing in different areas of law, to be elected by the Islamic Consultative Assembly from among the Muslim jurists nominated-by the Head of the Judicial Power.

*Article 98: The authority of the interpretation of the Constitution is vested with the Guardian Council, which is to be done with the consent of three-fourths of its members.