Eight 'Religious and Legal' Objections by the Guardian Council to Next Year's Budget Bill

On Wednesday night, March 6, the spokesperson for the Guardian Council announced that there are approximately eight religious and constitutional objections to the 98 budget bill. Simultaneously, members of the High Supervisory Board of the Expediency Discernment Council also reported two cases of incompatibility of this bill with the general policies of the system. According to Abbasali Kadkhodai, the review of next year's budget bill is ongoing in extraordinary sessions of this council. According to the law, the Guardian Council has twenty days to review the approved budget bill and inform the parliament of its objections so that representatives can address any potential issues and legal flaws in the budget bill. The spokesperson explained that the council aims to finalize the budget bill before the end of the year and is reviewing it in three sessions: morning, afternoon, and evening. As Kadkhodai stated, the eight objections raised by the council are based on the review of the bill up to the middle of its seventh clause, while the budget bill contains 22 clauses. Based on Kadkhodai's statements, several of the eight objections relate to 'incompatibility with the sixth program and general policies.' The spokesperson also noted that the budget bill has certain 'incompatibilities with Article 57 of the Constitution, and some organizations and state companies mentioned, such as the National Gas Company or the Municipal Affairs Organization, have ambiguities in their statutes that will also be addressed.' Article 57 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that 'the ruling powers in the Islamic Republic of Iran consist of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, which operate under the absolute guardianship of the leader and the leadership of the community according to the principles of this law. These powers are independent of one another.' According to Kadkhodai, 'issues such as the use of non-Persian words in the budget bill, which contradicts Article 15 of the Constitution, are also among the objections raised against next year's budget bill.' According to Article 15 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 'the official and common language and script of the people of Iran is Persian. Documents, correspondence, official texts, and textbooks must be in this language and script, but the use of local and ethnic languages in the press and media and the teaching of their literature in schools, alongside Persian, is free.' According to a report from the information base of the Expediency Discernment Council, the High Supervisory Board of this council also reviewed the budget bill in a meeting attended by the head of the Planning and Budget Organization and the head of the Parliament's Consolidation Commission, finding it incompatible with the general policies of the system in two cases. According to this report, the High Supervisory Board considered the single article of the budget bill to exacerbate the budget deficit and found it incompatible with sections of the general policies of resistant economy and the general policies of consumption pattern reform. Additionally, the lack of compatibility with the independence of the National Development Fund's expenditures from budgetary obligations was recognized as incompatible with sections of the general policies of the sixth development program. The entry of the High Supervisory Board of the Expediency Discernment Council into the approved bills and plans of the parliament before the official opinion of the Guardian Council has been a contentious issue in recent months. The entry of this High Supervisory Board into the review of the government's four bills to meet the FATF's requirements has faced reactions and protests from government officials, including Hassan Rouhani, with some calling it a new Guardian Council or a parallel parliament that has entered the legislative process. The High Supervisory Board has opposed the approval of the Palermo and CFT bills. Abbasali Kadkhodai, the spokesperson for the Guardian Council, also mentioned the 'non-operational nature of the budget' as 'one of the serious damages in the country's budgeting system' and said, 'For several years, we have been asking the government and parliament to transparently announce and send the budgets of these companies, which has improved each year, and this year is better than last year.' The Research Center of the Islamic Consultative Assembly has predicted that next year's budget bill will have a deficit of one hundred trillion tomans. Kadkhodai also referred to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's request for budget structure reform, stating, 'It seems that the opportunity has been taken to reform the budget structure in the first four months of next year with the cooperation of the government and parliament.' Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, announced in mid-February this year the order of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of Iran, to reform structures in the country within four months. With the publication of this news, initially, this order from the leader of the Islamic Republic was interpreted among media and experts as a call for reforming the structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but with explanations from parliament representatives, including Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, it became clear that the leader's order referred to reforming Iran's budget structure. Among the contentious issues during the review of next year's budget bill in the Islamic Consultative Assembly are the changes that representatives made regarding the increase in government employees' salaries. These changes faced a reaction from Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the head of the Planning and Budget Organization, who stated that the government would not implement these changes, but in response to a strong reaction from Ali Larijani, who emphasized in parliament that the government must implement the law, Nobakht was forced to adjust his statements. Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, stated on Thursday during a trip to Gilan province that the government is obliged to implement the parliament's decision regarding the salary increase. According to the representatives' decision, the salaries of all government employees, including managers, staff, and retirees, regardless of their income and fixed salaries, will uniformly increase by 400,000 tomans, after which the government must implement a gradual salary increase for government employees according to their income.