Mahmoud Sadeghi, Member of Parliament, Summoned to Culture and Media Court

Mahmoud Sadeghi, a member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, announced his summons to one of the branches of the Culture and Media Court, stating that the 'complainant' and 'subject of the complaint' against him are not specified in the court's summons. Mr. Sadeghi tweeted on Wednesday night, June 13, announcing his summons and published the text of the summons. He wrote that 'the Tehran prosecutor sent two identical notifications from the fourth branch of the Culture and Media Court addressed to me for the Speaker of Parliament, where neither the complainant is known nor the subject of the complaint.' This member of parliament added, 'When a member of parliament is summoned like this despite parliamentary immunity, God help the helpless people.' The summons of Mr. Sadeghi to the court comes while, according to Article 86 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, members of parliament are 'completely free in expressing their opinions and votes in the performance of their representative duties' and 'they cannot be prosecuted or detained for the opinions they expressed in parliament or the votes they cast in the performance of their representative duties.' However, the judiciary of the Islamic Republic has never practically recognized this principle. For instance, during the sixth parliament, under the presidency of Mehdi Karroubi, Hossein Laghmanian, the then representative of Hamadan, was summoned and detained by the judiciary for comments made during his tenure and criticism of the detention of national-religious activists. This issue turned into a widespread challenge between the parliament and the judiciary, and after Mr. Karroubi threatened to resign, Laghmanian was released. Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoeini, another member of the sixth parliament, was also detained after his term ended due to comments made during his tenure. Officials from the judiciary and the Culture and Media Court have not yet commented on the reason for Mr. Sadeghi's summons or his complainant(s). The summons warns him that if he does not appear at the mentioned branch of the Culture and Media Court, he will be 'arrested,' and on the day of his appearance, he may also bring a lawyer with him. The Tehran representative in the Islamic Consultative Assembly also told the ISNA news agency that the secretary of the Supervisory Board on Representatives showed him the letter sent to the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. According to Sadeghi, Ali Larijani, by referring this letter to the mentioned board, ordered that the 'complainant' of this representative be identified, which has not yet been reviewed by this board. The 'Supervisory Board on the Conduct of Representatives' is formed in each parliamentary term, and its members include one of the vice presidents of the parliament, one selected by the Article 90 Commission, one selected by the Legal and Judicial Commission, and four selected by the representatives of the parliament through voting. Mahmoud Sadeghi added that a consultant from the judiciary also expressed 'surprise' that the complainant and subject of the complaint are not specified in his summons, stating that he must know the subject of the complaint in advance to defend himself. He also speculated that this summons might relate to previous complaints against him made by 'various military, security, and central bank authorities,' which he claims have all been dismissed. Mahmoud Sadeghi is one of the most active and critical representatives in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, who typically takes a stance on controversial issues and has, on several occasions, revealed behind-the-scenes news about ongoing events in the country, including the number of detainees from the protests in December 2017 or the detention of Kaveh Madani, the former deputy of the Environmental Protection Organization. In December 2016, the Tehran prosecutor announced seven 'public' complaints and eight private complaints against Mahmoud Sadeghi and stated that the prosecutor's office had also filed charges against him due to his remarks at Amir Kabir University and Shiraz University. According to Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, Mr. Sadeghi's remarks at Amir Kabir University in Tehran, stating that 'the Constitution of 1980 was buried with martyr Beheshti' and 'corruption is now worse than during the Shah's time,' are unacceptable. This representative also requested the head of the judiciary last November to explain the 'rumor' of billions of tomans being deposited from the judiciary's funds into his 'personal' accounts. Following these remarks, an arrest warrant was issued for him. After that, Mr. Sadeghi reported that agents, upon his return home, intended to arrest him 'in violation of the law on the supervision of members of parliament,' but he 'resisted' and managed to get inside his house. This action by the prosecutor's office faced protests from Ali Larijani and Ali Motahari, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. Motahari, in a letter to the Tehran prosecutor, protested against this judicial body's action in summoning Mahmoud Sadeghi and attempting to arrest him, warning that this approach would turn the parliament into 'a useless entity always worried about summons and arrests.'