The judiciary's delayed promise to investigate "officials' assets"

According to the head of the judiciary, the law on the investigation of the assets of officials and officials of the Islamic Republic, approved in 2015, will be implemented soon. The basis of this law is one of the principles of the constitution that has not been implemented in the past four decades.

On Monday, May 6, the Chief of the Judiciary announced in a joint meeting with senior judicial officials that the executive regulations of the law "Handling the Assets of Officials, Officials, and Agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran" are being finalized and that this law will be implemented soon.

According to the Judiciary Public Relations Department, Ebrahim Raisi noted in the meeting that the Law on Investigating the Assets of Officials, after being approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly and reviewed and approved by the Guardian Council and the Expediency Discernment Council, was notified to the judiciary in 2015 to draft an executive regulation.

The approval of this law in the parliament dates back to July 2007. The parliament's resolution was twice passed between this body and the legislative apparatus due to objections from the Guardian Council, and was referred to the Advisory Council twice, in 2011 and 2012.

Raisi has not provided an explanation for the delay in implementing this law, which has been around 12 years since its initial approval in the parliament and nearly three and a half years since its final approval in the assembly.

The head of the judiciary said in a meeting on Monday: "Our goal in implementing this law is not to catch criminals, but rather to seek transparency and preventive measures. In fact, this law is to protect the dignity of the officials and officials of the Islamic Republic as much as possible; in such a way that, by developing appropriate mechanisms, the assets of the system's agents are practically monitored in such a way that the officials are not constantly exposed to accusations from any person or media and there are no doubts about their assets."

Handling of officials' assets delayed by 40 years

If the basis for investigating the assets of the officials of the Islamic Republic is the implementation of the principles of the constitution, the delay in this action would reach four decades; investigating the assets of senior government officials was foreseen in the first constitution of the Islamic Republic, and it was revised in 2019 with slight changes.

Article 142 of the Constitution stipulates: "The assets of the Leader, the President, the Vice Presidents, the ministers, and their spouses and children, before and after their service, shall be reviewed by the Chief of the Judiciary to ensure that they have not increased unlawfully."

This principle, before the revision of the constitution, was as follows: "The assets of the Leader or members of the Leadership Council, the President, the Prime Minister, ministers, and their spouses and children, before and after their service, shall be examined by the Supreme Court to ensure that they have not increased contrary to right."

In the second stage of reviewing the parliament's resolution, the Guardian Council found it to be, among other things, contrary to Article 110 of the Constitution, which describes the "duties and powers of the Leader."

Absence of handling the assets of the “leader and his relatives”

Based on available evidence, one of the Guardian Council's objections to the parliament's resolution is the issue of handling the "assets of the leader" and his wife and children, which remains unclear in the final text of the law.

The law passed by the parliament includes six articles, the first and third of which contradict each other; Article 1 stipulates that “officials designated in Article 142 of the Constitution” must report a list of their assets, their spouses, and their children to the head of the judiciary. In other words, this article also includes the Leader of the Islamic Republic and his relatives.

However, Article 3 of the law, which lists "officials and officials" required to report their assets, is divided into 24 rows, and there is no mention of the Leader of the Islamic Republic and his relatives.

Illegal delay by the judiciary

Also, Article 6 of the Law on “Handling the Property of Officials…” explicitly states: “The judiciary is obliged to prepare the executive regulations of the law within a maximum of six months after the entry into force of this law and to notify it after approval by the head of the judiciary.”

This law received final approval on November 29, 2015, by the Expediency Discernment Council, and was notified to the 11th President of the Government, Hassan Rouhani, by the Speaker of the Parliament, Ali Larijani, on December 4 of the same year.

Based on this, the judiciary was “obliged” to prepare and promulgate the executive regulations of this law by mid-June 2016 at the latest; a task that the new head of the judiciary has promised to do in the near future, after a delay of about three years. Raisi was appointed head of the judiciary in March 2018 by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei.

Source: DW