Motahari: The Judiciary Does Not Consider Itself Accountable to Anyone

Ali Motahari, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, criticized the remarks of the Tehran Prosecutor regarding the lack of immunity for representatives from prosecution due to their statements, warning that "with the method the prosecutor's office has adopted, Parliament will become a powerless entity, always worried about summons and detention." According to ILNA news agency, on Tuesday, December 9, Motahari, in a letter to the Tehran Prosecutor, questioned why private complaints against Mahmoud Sadqi were not addressed earlier and only initiated immediately after this representative's warning about the Judiciary's accounts. Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the Tehran Prosecutor, announced on the evening of December 8 that there were "eight private complaints and three public indictments" against Mr. Sadqi. Mahmoud Sadqi, the representative of Tehran in Parliament, had requested the Judiciary to explain reports alleging that funds from this branch had been deposited into a "personal account," which provoked a strong reaction from the head of the Judiciary. Many analysts believe the main reason for the prosecutor's efforts to detain Mr. Sadqi is this warning. In his letter, Motahari emphasized the "discrepancy between the views of Parliament and the Judiciary," asserting that contrary to the Tehran Prosecutor's opinion, criticism or questioning of the Judiciary by a representative is not a crime, and this branch should clarify the accounts and how the funds are spent, stating that these accounts are not personal. Motahari wrote to the Tehran Prosecutor: "If we take your view as a criterion, a number of representatives should be in the path of Parliament and the prosecutor's office every day because they criticize or question the President and ministers daily, and in some cases, it later turns out that it was not as alleged." The Deputy Speaker stressed that "the main problem of the Judiciary is that it does not consider itself accountable to anyone and fundamentally views its dignity as above accountability." According to Motahari, "with the method adopted by the prosecutor's office, Parliament will become a powerless entity, always worried about summons and detention, losing its freedom and independence, and perhaps resorting to flattery and sycophancy." He expressed hope that the Judiciary would "reconsider its foundations." Mahmoud Sadqi, citing Article 86 of the Constitution and the Law on the Supervision of the Conduct of Representatives, deemed the Tehran Prosecutor's actions against him illegal. Meanwhile, Motahari also referred to the Tehran Prosecutor's and the head of the Judiciary's assertion that "the Supervisory Board on the Conduct of Representatives does not have the authority to determine crimes," emphasizing that from the perspective of Parliament members, "any summons of a representative by the prosecutor's office must be with the permission of this board, and if this board determines that the representative's accusation is outside the scope of representative duties, the prosecutor's office is permitted to summon him." The Tehran Prosecutor, in his remarks on Tuesday regarding the immunity of representatives, cited Article 86 of the Constitution, stating that the Guardian Council in 2001 declared in an interpretation of this article that "immunity does not have an Islamic root, and all people are equal before divine law and rights." According to Article 86 of the Constitution, representatives cannot be prosecuted or detained for "opinions expressed in Parliament or votes cast in the performance of their representative duties," yet the Judiciary has never formally recognized this article. The Guardian Council, in 2001, at the request of Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, then head of the Judiciary, stated that this article pertains to "the opinions and votes of representatives in Parliament and in the performance of their representative duties" and does not imply committing criminal acts. However, this council approved the Law on the Supervision of the Conduct of Representatives in 2012, which states that representatives are "completely free in their opinions and votes in the performance of their representative duties and cannot be prosecuted or detained for the opinions expressed in Parliament or the votes cast in the performance of their representative duties." According to the first clause of this article, the determination of "the instances of Article 86 of the Constitution and Article 75 of the Internal Regulations of Parliament" is with the Supervisory Board on the Conduct of Representatives. According to the second clause of this article, "violating the provisions of this article by judicial authorities may result in disciplinary punishment from grades five to seven." According to Article 10 of the Law on the Supervision of the Conduct of Representatives, "the Judiciary is obliged to establish a special branch to address the submitted issues in accordance with this law and to review them out of turn and ultimately announce a final ruling to the Supervisory Board on the Conduct of Representatives within three months." The "Supervisory Board on the Conduct of Representatives" is formed in each parliamentary term, and its members include one of the vice presidents of Parliament, one person elected by the 90th Committee, one person elected by the Legal and Judicial Committee, and four persons elected by the representatives of Parliament through voting.