The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the supreme law of Iran. It was adopted by referendum on 2 and 3 December 1979, and went into force replacing the Constitution of 1906.Constitutional Background Hauser Global Law School Program It has been amended once, on 28 July 1989. The constitution was originally made up of 175 articles in 12 chapters, but amended in 1989 to 177 articles in 14 chapters.
The Constitution establishes Iran as an Islamic republic and defines the country's political institutions, the powers of the Supreme Leader, president, parliament and judiciary, and the rights and duties of citizens. It combines elected institutions, including the presidency and Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis), with unelected institutions, including the Supreme Leader and Guardian Council." The Constitution also establishes Islam as the official religion and requires legislation to conform to Islamic criteria.
History
Over the course of the year 1978 Iran was subject to worsening cycles of "provocation, repression, and polarization"Kepel, Gilles, Jihad : the Trail of Political Islam, Harvard, 2002, p. 111 in political unrest. It became more and more clear that the Pahlavi regime was likely to fall and that the leader of the revolution taking his regime down was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Work began on a constitution for the new Islamic state that would follow the revolution. A preliminary draft was (according to Asghar Schirazi) begun in Paris by one Hassan Habibi while Khomeini was still in exile there. It was structured like the 1958 constitution of the French Fifth Republic with separation of powers among the executive, judicial and parliamentary branches.Abrahamian, Khomeinism, 1993, p. 33 An outline was presented to Khomeini in January 1979 and he brought it with him when he returned to Iran. After being reworked by two different commissions, it was published on 14 June 1979 by the provisional government of Mehdi Bazargan as the official preliminary draft of the constitution.
The preliminary draft differed from the final version of the constitution in a number of ways. It made no reference to velayat-e faqih, and did not "reserve any special posts for Islamic jurists" except on the guardian council where they made up a minority and were to be approved by the parliament from a list drawn up by the "highest religious authorities".
Despite this, Khomeini made "only two small changes (in part to bar women from the presidency and judgeships)",The Reign of the Ayatollahs : Iran and the Islamic Revolution by Shaul Bakhash New York, Basic Books, 1984, p. 74 in the draft, and publicly stated his approval of the draft "on more than one occasion", declaring at one point that it "must be approved quickly". The Council of the Islamic Revolution approved of it unanimously after examination and "declared it to be the official preliminary draft of the Revolutionary Council".
What happened next is disputed. The revolutionaries' original plan was to have a Constituent Assembly of hundreds of people write the new constitution, but with this broad support for the preliminary draft, there now seemed to be a consensus in favor of a much more streamlined completion. An "Assembly of Experts" of only a few dozen members would go over the text and "present it for final ratification in a national referendum".
But Baqer Moin writes of contradictions in statements by Khomeini and questions about the election of the Experts. At the same time Ayatollah was publicly declaring the draft to be `correct`, he "had already started to denounce the supporters of a `Democratic Islamic Republic,` whose ideas were enshrined in the draft", and who included the man he had appointed president, Bazargan, as `enemies of Islam.` Also dismaying Bazargan and his colleagues, was the decision by the clerical members of the Revolutionary Council, without consulting them, to have the constitution finalized by a much smaller body—an `Assembly of Experts` with 70 members, which alarmed them because with much larger constituencies and fewer candidates "it would be easier to rig the elections". If Khomeini's network succeeded in doing so, "the likelihood of dissenting voices in the Assembly could be reduced to almost nothing".Moin, Baqer, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, (Thomas Dunne Books), c2000, pp. 216–7
During a joint summit between the members of the provisional government and the Superieur Council of Revolution with the presence of Khomeini in Qom, it was decided that an Assembly for the Final Review of the Constitution was to be established for a final evaluation of the constitution of Iran.
Assembly of Experts The assembly members were voted on in the summer of 1979. Out of the "72 delegates whose election was officially recognized, 55 were clerics", almost all of them following "the line of the Imam", i.e. Khomeini loyalists. (Other delegates were from different minorities of religions, scientists, Athletes.)
Schirazi writes that Khomeini then announced that the job of "determining whether or not" the constitution was "in conformity with Islamic requirements" was "exclusively reserved for revered jurists", to the surprise of those outside his network. Also at odds with previous statements was that instead of quickly approving the draft, the Assembly for the Final Review of the Constitution (dominated by Khomeini supporters) rewrote it, adding a Guardian Jurist (wali-e faqih) leader with powers over other branches of government, and significantly increasing the power of the Council of Guardians. (The offices of the President and the Prime Minister were retained for the executive branch of government from the French model.)
A different version of events comes from Shaul Bakhash, who writes that Khomeini and his supporters accepted the preliminary draft but were provoked by an "opposition determined to establish a secular state". A secularist group calling itself a "Seminar on the People's Expectations from the Constitution", called for changes in the draft: "a ceremonial president, supremacy of parliament, independent judiciary, individual rights, and equal rights for women, proposed making the universal declaration of Human Rights part of the constitution, more decentralization, and `democratization` of the army".The Reign of the Ayatollahs by Shaul Bakhash, pp. 76–77 This led "Khomeini to spur the Islamic groups to counterattack', telling his supporters that the determination of whether articles of the constitution meet Islamic criteria `lies within the exclusive jurisdiction of the leading Islamic jurists,` and non-jurists should not get involved. "It quickly became clear to Khomeini and his lieutenants that there existed considerable support and no mass opposition to the doctrine and that the constitution could serve to institutionalize both the supremacy of the faqih and clerical rule."(p. 82 The Reign of the Ayatollahs by Shaul Bakhash) The idea that Khomeini "should be entrusted with supreme authority under the constitution" was brought up by provincial clerics in the Assembly and was quickly embraced by the Assembly.
The assembly worked for sixty-seven sessions and in four rounds. The first round was considered with a preliminary evaluating of principles. The second round considered with providing principles in groups. The third round dealt with approbation of principles and the fourth round with investigation of all collection of principles.
According to a legal bill of council of revolution, the draft was put to a vote through a referendum, with voters given the option of voting yes or no. On 2–3 December 1979 Iranians voted, and the official result was over 99% in favor. (The vote was boycotted by some secular, leftist and Kurdish groups; and total of 15,578,956 votes was almost 5 million less than the earlier referendum for an Islamic Republic.)
1989 Amendments
On 24 April 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a decree convening an Assembly for Revising the Constitution. It made several changes in the constitution, in Articles 5, 107, 109, 111, eliminating the need for the Supreme Leader to be a Marja' chosen by popular acclaim.Moin, Baqer, Khomeini, (2001), p. 293 It made permanent the Expediency Discernment Council to work out disagreements between the Parliament and Council of Guardians, and eliminated the post of Prime Minister. The amendment concerning qualifications for the Supreme Leader is thought to have been introduced and approved because no marja' had given strong support for Khomeini's policies.Brumberg, Daniel, Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran by Daniel Brumberg, University of Chicago Press 2001, p. 146 The amendments were approved by the voting public on 28 July 1989 (in same election as Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected to the first of two terms as President of Iran).Abrahamian, Ervand, History of Modern Iran, Columbia University Press, 2008, p. 183
Islamic principles Velayat-e Faqih While liberal and leftist values are present in the constitution, overriding both are "the values, principles and institutions of an ideal Islamic society". The Ayatollah Khomeini's concept of Velayat-e Faqih, i.e. Guardianship or rule of the Islamic Jurist, is enshrined in several places in the constitution. One example is the section "Method of Governance in Islam" in the preamble, where it is stated
In case the term 'righteous' is ambiguous, a later section of the Preamble (Guardianship of the Jurist) states
Article 109 stipulates that the Leader must possess the "scholarship, as required for performing the functions of mufti in different fields of fiqh", i.e. only a high level cleric of Islamic law may be the Leader. Article 113 states the Leader is the highest public official in Islamic Republic of Iran. The Head of Judiciary, who has considerable power (establishing the organizational structure of the judiciary, drafting judiciary bills for parliament, hiring, dismissing, transferring judges), must be an Islamic legal cleric (mujtahid); as must the President of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General (Article 162), and six out of the twelve members of the Guardian Council who are appointed by the Leader (Article 91) and have the power to veto legislation from the parliament that they believe does not conform to sharia (Article 96).
Sharia Hassan Vakilian cites Article 4: as evidence "Sharia laws and principles" ("Islamic criteria" in the article above) "must be considered as a main source of the legal order" in the constitution. Sharia is referred to numerous times in the constitution but often by another terms (as it is above): In the Preamble: "Islamic principles", "Islamic rules", "Islamic standards", "Islamic program", "Rules of Islamic codes", "Islamic ordinances and regulations"; In articles 110, 147, 151, 167, 171, 175 and 177 "Islamic criteria". Other terms used are "Islamic law" (Article 45), "Islamic ordinances" (Article 91), "Islamic regulations" (Article 107), "Norms and principles of Islamic justice" (Article 14), "Principles and commandments of official religion" (Article 85), "Principles of Sharia" (Article 112), "Criteria of Fiqh" (Article 163), "Islamic sources and authentic fatwa" (Article 167).
Preamble The preamble or introduction of the constitution touches on (its version of) events leading up to the revolution and on key features of the new Islamic regime:
How the "anti-despotic movement for constitutional government [1906–1911], and anti-colonialist movement for the nationalization of petroleum" in the 1950s failed "due to departure from genuine Islamic positions"; a matter rectified by the "authentically Islamic and ideological line" under the leadership pursued under the leadership of Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. How the movement dawned in June 1963 with "the devastating protest by Imam Khomeini against the American conspiracy known as the 'White Revolution'".