KHATAMI’S BILL REJECTED BY COUNCIL OF GUARDIANS
TEHRAN 9 May (IPS) As expected, the Council of
the Guardians (CG) rejected a bill presented by the government last September
aimed at enhancing the powers of the Iranian president, including that of giving
his the right of supervising the application of the Constitution.
The reformists-dominated Majles had approved the bill, alongside another aiming at cutting some powers of the CG.
The 12-members, leader appointed, conservatives-controlled Council, which has the duty to approve all laws passed by the parliament to verify their strict compliance with the Islamic Sharia law as well as vetting all candidates for all elections, on Friday concluded that the bill was in contradiction with at least 15 articles of the Constitution and sent it back to Majles for reviewing.
Among the violations is to entrust power to the president to warn the judiciary on constitutional breaches and mete out punishment if the warning is not heeded, the council said, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.
"Requiring the Judiciary, tribunals and judges to probe into (certain violations) merely on the request of the president is tantamount to interference in juridical issues and prerogatives of the judiciary", the Guardians Council said.
"The bill on defining the limits of the Iranian president's responsibilities and prerogatives ... was distinguished as contravening the Constitution in several cases," its public relations office said.
The Iranian president had affirmed that his intention to present the bill to the parliament was to "better respond to the aspirations of the people".
The bill had received an overwhelming backing of the parliament, pending the Guardians Council's screening before it becomes a full-blown law.
If parliament refuses to make any changes, as demanded by the Guardians, the bill would most probably be submitted for arbitration to the Assembly for Discerning the Interests of the State (ADIS), or the Expediency Council, which is chaired by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the regime’s most powerful man after the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i.
Some reformists MMs (members of the Majles) had threatened not to to for arbitration to the Expediency Council, which usually sides with the Council of the Guardians and revert to a nation wide referendum.
But jurists and experts reminds that organising a referendum need the prior approval of the leader of the regime, himself is a hard line conservative.
Reformists around President Mohammad Khatami had also urged him to resign in case his bills are rejected by the CG. But so far Khatami has not decided.
Senior reformers close to the lamed Khatami have blamed his constant bowing to conservatives for the humiliating defeat the reformists suffered at the last elections for cities and rural councils.
In Tehran, where only ten per cent of the voters went to the polls, all the 15 seats of the council were occupied by candidates close to the conservatives, resulting in the election of a conservative Mayor for the Capital.
Press on Wednesday cited a female deputy from Tehran, Mrs. Fatemeh Haqiqat-Joo, as saying that fifty Iranian MPs were mulling resignation in a bid, which they thought could ease up stranglehold on President Khatami's reform camp.
"The reformist MMs' resignation could open the way for people's appropriation of reform issues," she said, adding the the massive walk-out was being contemplated since six months ago, its outcome due to become certain within the next two months.
"If we prove to be inefficient reformers, we will be forced to resign...since the power structure has petrified and the people's chance of appropriating reforms has been taken way," the Persian daily Hambastegi quoted here as saying further.
Opponents of the bill have denounced it as being contrary to the Constitution and paving the way for dictatorship, IRNA pointed out.
Last month, an official of the supervisory Guardian Council lashed out at the bill, describing it as being "dangerously unconstitutional" and pledging to veto it.
"They (architects of the bill) have envisaged the president some power which is contrary to the Constitution", director general of the Guardians's information office, Hassan Mirdamadi, told a meeting of the supervisory body in the central Yazd province and reported by the official news agency.
"This is very dangerous and God willing the Guardians Council will strongly and firmly confront this bill and oppose it", he said, adding: "The despotism written into this law is very terrible and the next president would not leave any right to judges and nobody could do anything without the president's permission," Mirdamadi went on to say.
Khatami's allies have put on a brave face in the face of this strong opposition, with the government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh brushing aside speculation that the president may back down on his demand.
"The government cannot retract these bills since it considers them as the least (demand) to defend the people's rights", he told reporters last month, mentioning the other bill on the electoral law. ENDS REFORM BILL REJECTED 9503