Iranian Constitution Research Articles

The 1906-07 Iranian Constitution and the Constitutional Debate on Islam

AbstractAfter a brief sketch of the historical background, the mutual impact of Islam and constitutionalism is examined by looking closely at the process of constitution-making in the broad context of the constitutional politics of Iran between 1905 and 1911. The modification of modern constitutional concepts under the impact of Shiʿi Islam and through its custodians in the course of the reception of Western constitutionalism in this period is followed by an analysis of the impact of modern political ideas on Islam. The analysis is based on the texts of the Fundamental Law of 1906 and its 1907 Supplement, and on the contemporary tracts for and against constitutionalism from opposite Islamic viewpoints. Our detailed examination of these sources indicates no presumption that a constitution had to bebasedon Islam. Nor was there any notion of ‘the Islamic state,’ the slogan of the Islamic revolution of 1979. For the constitutionalists and anti-constitutionalist pamphleteers of the first decade of the twentieth century alike, the counterpart to the constitutional government was not the Islamic state but the autocratic monarchy of ‘the king of Islam.’

Legal Strategies in Upstream Oil and Gas Contracts to Attract Foreign Investment: Iran's Case

Legal Strategies in Upstream Oil and Gas Contracts to Attract Foreign Investment: Iran's Case

State, Power and Long-term Trends in the Iranian Constitution of 1906 and its Supplement of 1907

This article looks at the Iranian Constitution of 1906 and its Supplement of 1907 in terms of the existing trend towards the centralization and strengthening of the state, looking in detail at the role of the reformist higher bureaucracy in pursuing these objectives in the drafting of the Constitution. It also considers the question of the long term trend relating to control of power in the form of the army, and the way the issue was handled in the two documents. It concludes that the rights of the people were weakened by these particular trends, and that modern principles of legitimacy recognized traditional practice with regard to the army, and thereby also undermined accountability.

Foreign Policy of Iran after Islamic Revolution

This article is to explain the policies that have been undertaken by government of Iran in foreign affairs since Islamic Revolution (1979). Although principles underlined in Constitution of Iran have been followed by Islamic Republic of Iran; but elected presidents have interpreted the principles variously. So, different approaches of foreign policy with different outcomes have been followed by presidents that had been chosen in presidential elections. In this article, we tend to explain the changes that caused by the presidents in foreign policy of Iran since Islamic Revolution. The article is written in tow main parts. In the first part, we are going to summarize the main approaches of foreign policy in Iran since Islamic Revolution and influence of them on Iran’s foreign policy in different periods; and in second part, we will explain foreign policy of Iran during presidencies of Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, Seyyed Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Legislative Approaches towards Human Trafficking in Pre- versus Post-Islamic Revolution Iran

AbstractHuman trafficking, in particular the trafficking of women and children, is considered a syndicated international phenomenon, and numerous international agreements have consequently been signed to combat the crime. Iran is one of the many countries that passed legislated laws to battle this evil industry. In the present article, the author examines and compares Iran's legislative approaches towards human trafficking before and after the Islamic Revolution. The Iranian legislation combating human trafficking generally suffers from some serious shortcomings; particularly, the inconsistency regarding this issue between the civil and the Islamic Penal Codes and Iran's Constitution is its most prominent weakness.

Constitutionalism in Iran and Its Asian Interdependencies

In the historiography of Iranian constitutionalism and the constitutional revolution, the reformist movement is treated as a receptive movement crafted by the ideas originating chiefly from nineteenth-century Western Europe or Russia, with no dependencies on Asia or the Middle East, excepting the Ottoman Empire. Even in the case of the Ottoman Empire, the study of the cross-border link has been limited to the nonreciprocal impact that the movement for change and reform in the Ottoman Empire had on late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century Iran, with no reference to the possible impact that Iranian constitutionalism might have had on the Young Turk revolution of 1908. In the case of Transcaspian connections, the historiography of Iranian constitutionalism has been usually limited to its reference to a few nonreciprocal links between Iran and the northern frontiers, where mainly the Caucasus was in charge of producing revolutionary literature or dispatching revolutionary agents to the south in order to save the constitution from being slaughtered by Qajar despotism. In a corresponding fashion, in Soviet historiography the study of the reformist movement of the early twentieth century in the Caucasus and Central Asia was generally treated as an isolated, self-contained movement, confined within the geographic borders of Baku, Tbilisi, and Bukhara, or at most within the southern region of the czarist empire, Turkistan. The occasional reference to the cross-regional dimension of these reform movements, if ever, was merely to its association with the political reforms exercised during the same period by the Russians or Tatars in different parts of the czarist empire. Here, too, what has been largely overlooked is the bond between the reform movements in the Caucasus and Central Asia and the corresponding movements in neighboring countries, namely, Iran, Afghanistan, India, or the Ottoman Empire. In this study, I examine the impact that the Iranian constitutional revolution had on the reformist movement of the early twentieth century in the Caucasus and Central Asia and Afghanistan. Further, I sketch the Indian connection that made such an impact possible. My observation in this study is derived from highlighting historical examples at specific moments, rather than adopting a checklist approach, and covering as many spaces as possible over a certain period of time.

Financing Job Guarantee Schemes by Oil Revenue: The Case of Iran

Iran's constitution emphasizes social justice and obliges government to provide a job for every citizen. But in fact, the government's duty to provide jobs has shifted to government support for a measure designed to create new employment opportunities through subsidized loans to the private sector. This policy has not been successful to date, and the current stock of unemployed workers is about three million - 12.75 percent of the country's labor force.To realize the desire of the Iranian people to achieve full employment and social justice, the government must implement employment guarantee schemes, or EGS, in the most deprived areas. Elected town and village councils can design and manage the public works with the help of other government, as well as non-government, institutions. Programs can be financed using less than ten percent of the annual oil-exporting revenue that is deposited in the Oil Stabilization Fund.

Iranian Judicial System (Court's Structure)

In an Iranian court the judge acts as prosecutor, jury, and arbiter; the system is a form of the inquisitorial system. However, according to Article 168 of Iran's constitution, in certain cases involving the media a jury is allowed to be the arbiter. The judge holds absolute power. In practice, judges may be overwhelmed by cases, and not have the time to excogitate about each case. All judges are certified in Islamic law, and most, but not all, are members of the ruling clergy. I'm going to explain courts structure in this article.

Private Relations in Iranian Islamic Civil Code

Civil law or private Body of law developed from Roman law and used in continental Europe and most former colonies of European nations, including the province of Quebec and the U.S. The most significant codifications of modern civil law were the French (Napoleonic code) and the German (German civil code). The basis of law in civil-law jurisdictions is statute, not custom; civil law is thus to be distinguished from common law. In civil law, judges apply principles embodied in statutes, or law codes, rather than turning to case precedent. French civil law forms the basis of the legal systems of The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, most of France's former possessions overseas, and many Latin American countries. German civil law prevails in Austria, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, and certain countries outside Europe, such as Japan, that have westernized their legal systems. The term is also used to distinguish the law that applies to private rights from the law that applies to criminal matters: our means civil law opposed criminal law, I must avowal that Iranian Islamic civil law influenced by French & German code; though our civil code different from them because we have great jurisprudence sources in civil law and according to the Iranian constitution all code must based on FIFG. Now I perfect talk about some topics as legacy and will, persons, Guardianship, Nationality, Domicile, Continuously Absent Persons, Marriage, temporary marriage, Dowry and Divorce.

The Invasion of the Private Sphere in Iran

The Invasion of the Private Sphere in Iran MEHRANGIZ KAR THE Islamic regime that governs Iran constantly violates the private domain of the Iranian citizen through religious and legal means. The intrusion of political power into the private lives of citizens is characteristic of totalitarian regimes. In Iran the regime has disguised the intrusion as a religious ethics requirement and justifies it by cloaking it in a religious guise. The private sphere of those labeled “dissidents” is more threatened than that of other citizens. Using the legal and religious laws the regime has adopted, government agencies have brought all aspects of the private life of dissidents, critics, artists, and political activists under surveillance. For instance, listening to the telephone conversations of dissidents is a widespread practice, allowing the authorities to monitor and control dissidents’ private interaction and communication. Through these methods the regime conspires against dissidents, accusing them of illegal sexual activities, apostasy, and spying. This infringement of citizens’ private lives by the police and the regime’s security forces by falsely accusing them of ideological and sexual crimes, clearly violates Article 37 of the Iranian constitution, which calls for the presumption of innocence. Violation of the private sphere is not limited to dissidents but extends to all Iranian citizens. Since 1979, technocrats have legitimized this intrusion based on an appeal to Islamic laws. They have drawn on the religious interpretations of political clergy who are connected to political power in Iran to pass legislation that blatantly contradicts the principles of freedom and human rights. SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 70, No. 3 (Fall 2003) The ruling clergy thus puts its stamp of approval on the systematic violation of citizens’ private lives. The constitution of the Islamic Republic that was adopted in 1981 envisioned that the country’s laws and policies would not contravene Sharia, or religious law (this is stated in Article 4 and 94). This means that the rights formulated in the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights cannot be incorporated in Iranian laws—and this also means that government agencies have free rein to carry out their intrusions and oppression. The application of Sharia makes possible the control of the private sphere of citizens’ lives. In this paper I will discuss two legal means by virtue of which the regime keeps private lives of citizens under surveillance. These are: 1) legalized inquisition; and 2) the obligation to enjoin the good and forbid the evil.1 Legalized Inquisition Even though Article 23 of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran forbids inquisition, the regime actively carries out the practice. The legal and political architectonics of the Islamic Republic justifies inquisition as necessary for the protection of Islamic and revolutionary values. And the scope of religious government is so vast that it allows for the investigation of every aspect of an individual’s private beliefs. A few examples follow. Individuals trying to register a political party or cultural organization or who want to obtain a license to publish a newspaper must submit to inquisition. To register a political party or to run for office requires a thorough investigation of one’s private convictions . The approval of an applicant depends on a positive evaluation by the administrative agencies. During the evaluation process the agencies not only inspect the applicant’s past but also his or her personal beliefs, private thoughts, and family history. 830 SOCIAL RESEARCH If in any of these areas there is any evidence that the applicant is not committed to the doctrine of velayat-e faqih, or rule by the clergy, his or her application is rejected. The conduct of inquisition for the purposes of political and cultural activities is so rigorous that even the pious are required to prove their faithfulness. Of course, the measure of faithfulness is always how faithful one is to velayat-e faqih. Those whose conduct reveals a critical view of that doctrine or evidence that puts into doubt their absolute loyalty to the regime are branded as infidels, counter-revolutionaries, and spies, and their candidacy for an office or their application for a license rejected. To keep such individuals under surveillance, they are followed, their phone lines are tapped...

Money laundering in Iranian law: present and future

Traces the basis for forfeiture of illicit gains from drug trafficking in Iranian law, with special emphasis on the new Bill of Law on Money Laundering in Iran. Outlines the rules for the confiscation of illegal funds or incomes that do not have all the elements of laundering, according to Article 46 of the Constitution of Iran, and further laws that have been passed since: the Revolutionary Courts and Prosecution Office Regulation, the Anti‐Drugs Act 1980, and the Anti‐Drugs Act 1988 (amended 1997). Summarises the new Bill’s provisions: kinds of money and suspicious transactions (it distinguishes between “grey”, “black” and “dirty” money); the powers of the court, which include freezing accounts and requiring information for inspections; persons subject to the Act, which include a wide range of financial and other organisations; their duties, which are reporting to the High Council a variety of activities; and the crimes and punishments.

Constitutional Constraints

In assessing the prospects for democratic change in Iran, one must attend not only to broad social pressures throughout the country, or even to the concrete reform initiatives that come from within the government, but to the ultimate institutional determinant of contemporary Iranian politics: the Revolutionary Constitution of the Islamic Republic. In what follows, then, I will discuss the impediments and obstacles to political reform that Iran's Constitution poses, and explain why such reform cannot be realized without radical constitutional change.

Environmental initiatives in contemporary Iran

Iran's environmental crisis is one of the severest in the world. At the same time, environmental initiatives there at both the government and private levels are unique not only among Muslim countries, but in the developing world in general. Iran's constitution contains the strongest environmental statement of any contemporary national charter. During the 1990s environmental NGOs proliferated in Iran, and have generally worked well with the Islamic government. As a result Iran has seen effective grassroots activism on environmental issues as well as some very progressive government initiatives. Since overthrowing its monarchy in 1979 Iran has striven to play a leadership role among non-aligned developing nations. The current president, Mohammad Khatami, has established a Center for the Dialogue of Civilizations, partly in response to Harvard professor Samuel Huntington's contentious clash of civilizations theory. Against this backdrop of foreign policy, Iran's environmental initiatives offer some compelling alternative visions to Western models of environmental policy for developing countries.

Environmental Initiatives in Contemporary Iran

Iran's environmental crisis is one of the severest in the world. At the same time, environmental initiatives there at both the government and private levels are unique not only among Muslim countries, but in the developing world in general. Iran's constitution contains the strongest environmental statement of any contemporary national charter. During the 1990s environmental NGOs proliferated in Iran, and have generally worked well with the Islamic government. As a result Iran has seen effective grassroots activism on environmental issues as well as some very progressive government initiatives. Since overthrowing its monarchy in 1979 Iran has striven to play a leadership role among non-aligned developing nations. The current president, Mohammad Khatami, has established a Center for the Dialogue of Civilizations, partly in response to Harvard professor Samuel Huntington's contentious clash of civilizations theory. Against this backdrop of foreign policy, Iran's environmental initiatives offer some compelling alternative visions to Western models of environmental policy for developing countries.

The Constitution of Iran: Politics and the State in the Islamic Republic: Asghar Schirazi Translated by John O'Kane

The Constitution of Iran: Politics and the State in the Islamic Republic: Asghar Schirazi Translated by John O'Kane

The constitution of Iran: politics and the state in the Islamic Republic

Part 1 Contradictions in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic: the composition of the Constitution the genesis of the Constitution the clash over velayat-e faqih. Part 2 The supression of the democratic elements: the power of the leader the impotence of the people the supression of fundamental rights the power of the clergy. Part 3 The fate of the Constitution's Islamic legalist elements: the unavoidable acceptance of laws alien to the shari'a circumventing the shari'a through the Rule of Emergency circumventing the shari'a through Secondary Contractual Conditions state ordinances the interests of the ruling system as a standard for legislation a problematic criterion of legitimacy. Part 4 The crisis of the shari'a: an awareness of crisis the search for solutions criticism from outside.

“Is Our Name Remembered?”: Writing the History of Iranian Constitutionalism As If Women and Gender Mattered

Current histories of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1909) frequently begin the story of the revolutionary years with 11 December 1905. On that day the bastinado was inflicted on three Tehrani merchants, Sayyid Hashim Qandfurush, Hajj Ahmad Qaysariyah, and Sayyid Isma'il Charmfurush, on orders from ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah, governor of Tehran. This incident, we are told, led the two leading Tehran clerics, Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba'i and Sayyid ‘Abdallah Bihbihani, to stage a protest sit-in with their supporters in the Shah ‘Abd al-'Azim shrine and demand the dismissal of ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah and premier ‘Ayn al-Dawlah, as well as the institution of a house of justice. A month later, the sit-in ended successfully: though ‘Ayn al-Dawlah remained premier, ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah was dismissed and a royal decree to establish a house of justice was issued. Some months later another incident set off the next round of the contest.

Three Recent Decisions of the Yemeni Supreme Court

DESPITE A RICH history, beginning with the Ottoman constitutional movement in the latter part of the nineteenth century and that of Qajar Iran at the beginning of the twentieth, Middle Eastern constitutions have a propensity to turn into dead letters. Unless and until constitutional watchdogs begin to protect the rights of citizens and subjects in a manner compatible with the generous display of constitutional liberties and entitlements in the supreme texts, the rule of constitutional law will be constrained by the needs of contemporary decision-makers. The absence of constitutional protection results from the combined legacy of historical pressures (which, in the twentieth century, undermined the liberal experience) and the noted absence of any influence of the American legal tradition. Whether in the British tradition of parliamentary sovereignty or in the French tradition of a supreme Civil Code, the colonial experiment in the Middle East left behind as its legacy a judiciary that was powerless to assess the legality of a statute in terms of the supreme law of the land. Constitutions, where they exist, serve to regulate the operation of non-judicial institutions and are important only to the extent of providing a general scheme of executive and legislative power, as well as offering a measure of legitimacy in times of crisis. During the last decade, disparate and seemingly unrelated factors have converged to remove the constitutional texts from their ivory towers of ineffectiveness in various Middle Eastern countries, and new independent judicial bodies have been entrusted with the responsibility of protecting and implementing the previously innocuous fundamental texts. Two Middle Eastern countries have established independent judicial bodies with constitutional competence. The first, and most successful, is the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court (al-mahkama aldustariyya al-'ulya), introduced by the Constitution of 1971 and effectively established in 1980. At nearly the same time, the Iranian Constitution of 1979 stipulated that all legislation must be in conformity with Islamic law and with the Constitution and created a Council of

Ahmad Kasravi and Seyyed Jamal Waez on constitutionalism in Iran

Ahmad Kasravi and Seyyed Jamal Waez on constitutionalism in Iran

The Historians of the Constitutional Movement and the making of the Iranian Populist Tradition

An Iranian born in 1906, when the constitution was granted, would have had to wait until he was thirty-four to find a history of what was happening at the time of his birth. Kasravi's first volume appeared in 1940 and Malikzada's in 1948. Censorship was not the cause of this strange delay. Could it be that disillusion with the outcome of the movement ran so deep in the minds of intellectuals that no one wished to relive the story by writing it? The newly established Pahlavi state tried to glorify the ancient heritage of Persia and to shift the historical landscape from the immediacy of the constitutional era to the politically irrelevant past of pre-Islamic Iran. It is somehow peculiar—and perhaps a measure of the time—that an author of the Iranian constitution, the Mushir al-Daula (Hasan Pirniya) undertook, when in political retirement, to write not a history of the constitutional movement but a monumental work on ancient Iran. Kasravi speculated about the reasons for the nonexistence of a reliable history. The opportunist elitist reformers (“carpetbaggers”) who shifted sides during the movement “were reluctant to see the history of that movement truthfully written.” The Mushir al-Daula was one of them. Kasravi complained that when he began publishing his history, the sons, relatives, and followers of these men objected to his critical historical evaluation.