Khamenei Rejects Constitutional Oversight

 

A cleric close to conservative Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, an influential member of the Assembly of Experts, has stated that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei violated the Assembly’s constitutional right to monitor the Leader’s performance.

According to BBC Persian Service, Abbas Nabavi, Head of the Organization for Islamic Civilization and Development and a member of the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute, which is directed by Mesbah Yazdi, stated that Khamenei wrote a letter to the Assembly of Experts communicating that the supervisory role of this body is only limited to “checking the general conditions of leadership.”

According to Iran’s Constitution, the Assembly of Experts is a council of eighty-six clerics popularly elected to eight-year terms. They elect the supreme leader from their ranks in accordance with Article 107 of the 1979 Constitution.

Nabavi talked about the aforementioned letter in a speech given in front of the Ansar-e Hezbollah, a militant conservative group in Iran. The full text of the speech was published in Ya-Lasarat, the official website of the group.

Abbasi continued by adding that Khamenei submitted this letter during the “last days of the previous term” of the Assembly, which indicates the letter was sent to the Assembly while Hashemi Rafsanjani was still the body’s Chairman.

Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s former president and the current Chairman of the Expediency Council, has been politically marginalized following his critical approach to the regime’s handling of the events following the 2009 disputed presidential elections. Rafsanajani was forced to cede his seat as the head of the Assembly of Experts to the traditionalist cleric Mahdavi Kani in March 2011.

“If the Supreme Leader is still fit to rule then I do not allow you to [criticize] the details of [governance].” Nabavi quoted Khamenei as saying.

The constitutional role of the Supreme Leader in relation with other governmental bodies has long been a topic of debate in Iran. Many politicians, analysts, and opposition members have accused the Supreme Leader of overstepping his legal authority by influencing the appointment of ministers and other officials. This was the topic of a heated conflict between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei during the last summer.

In a related development, Ali Motaheri, a conservative member of the parliament, criticized the individuals who he called “devotees” of the Supreme Leader. He added, “We should be able to criticize the Leader and he should be responsive.”

On Sunday, in an interview with Khabar Online, a conservative news site, Motahari added, “The idea has to be accepted that the position and the grandeur of the Supreme Leader’s leadership is protected. However, at the same time [we] should be able to criticize him and he should respond. If this way of thinking is institutionalized many of the criticisms against the principle of velayat-e faqih could be excreted.”

 

Source: insideofiran

Latest news
Related news