News ID: 48

Date: 12 April 2021 - 15:49

Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei:

Expediency Council’s faults with election law amendment bill in place

Constitutional Council spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei said the Iranian Expediency Council’s faults with a bill to amend the country’s presidential election law are still in place.

In a tweet posted on his official Twitter account on Sunday, Kadkhodaei wrote that the Expediency Council has found the amendments to the presidential election law bill incompatible with Article 110 of the Constitution.

Noting that the faults are still in place, he added that the top legislative body has identified some provisions of the draft inconsistent with the second paragraph of the Article.

According to the Constitution, in cases when the parliament and the Constitutional Council disagree on a bill the issue is referred to the Expediency Council for final arbitration.

The Iranian parliament voted in favor of the Amendments to Presidential Election Law bill on Nov. 2. A total of 160 lawmakers, out of the 290-seat parliament, voted in favor of the bill, 72 voted against and eight abstained.

In order to become a law, the Constitutional Council should vet the bill for compliance with the Constitution and Islamic Law.

Back in February, the Constitutional Council found faults with the bill, rejected it and sent it back to the Parliament to rectify them.

“The bill was reviewed by the Constitutional Council during several sessions and members found a number of faults with it,” Kadkhodaei said at the time.

He added that the bill runs contrary to Article 115 of the Constitution, which says the president must be elected from among the religious and political elite who meet the following qualifications: Iranian origin, Iranian nationality, administrative leadership, clear past record, honesty and piety, believing in the fundamentals of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the official religion of the country.