Assembly of Experts for Constitution

The Assembly for the Final Review of the Constitution (AFRC; fa, مجلس بررسی نهایی قانون اساسی) also known as the Assembly of Experts for Constitution ( fa, مجلس خبرگان قانون اساسی), was a constituent assembly in Iran that was convened in 1979 to condense and ratify the draft prepared beforehand for the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It was mandated by the Council of the Islamic Revolution after the March 1979 referendum for regime change, and composed of 73 seats including four reserved for ethnoreligious minorities and the rest representing provincial constituencies on a basis of population. The elections to the assembly were held by the Interim Government of Iran in August 1979, which resulted in a landslide victory for the Islamist disciples of Ruhollah Khomeini who successfully added his theory –the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist– to the constitution despite opposition by the minority.

It convened on 18 August 1979 and completed its deliberations rewriting the constitution on 15 November 1979. Subsequently, the constitution was approved in a referendum in December 1979.

History

Prior to its election, a "Revolutionary council" had unveiled a draft constitution on June 18 which was written by Hasan Habibi. Aside from substituting a strong president, on the Gaullist model, for the monarchy, the constitution did not differ markedly from Iran's 1906 constitution and did not give the clerics an important role in the new state structure. Ayatollah Khomeini was prepared to submit this draft, virtually unmodified, to a national referendum or, barring that, to an appointed council of forty representatives who could advise on, but not revise, the document. Ironically, as it turned out, it was the leftist who most vehemently rejected this procedure and demanded that the constitution be submitted for full-scale review by a constituent assembly. Ayatollah Shariatmadari supported these demands.

Members

According to Shaul Bakhash, the seventy-three-member Assembly of Experts was made up of 55 clerics, 50 of whom were candidates of the Islamic Republic Party (IRP). About a dozen members were independents or represented other parties and voted against the controversial articles of the constitution.

According to Sepehr Zabir, pro-IRP faction were 50% while 10% were better-known clerics such as Mahmoud Taleghani who were closer secular groupings. 20% were non-clerics embracing theocracy and the remaining 20% were followers of Abolhassan Banisadr and Mehdi Bazargan. Organizations such as the National Front, People's Fedai Guerrillas and People's Mujahedin of Iran were totally absent. A seat of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou of Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan remained vacant after his credential was rejected.

The controversial articles in question were ones that revamped the draft constitution to include principles of Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (''velayat-e faqih'') and establish the basis for a state dominated by the Shia clergy. The article was passed with 53 votes in favor, while 8 cast votes against and 5 abstained.

Members of the opposition bloc were reportedly the following:

*Abolhassan Banisadr
*Mahmoud Taleghani
*Ezzatollah Sahabi
* Ali Golzadeh Ghafouri
* Nasser Makarem Shirazi
* Ahmad Nourbakhsh
*Rahmatollah Moghaddam Maraghei
* Hamidollah Mir-Moradzehi
* Mohammad-Javad Hojjati Kermani
Representatives of ethnoreligious minorities are also likely to have voted with the opposition. They were:
* Hrair Khalatian (Armenian)
* Sergen Bait Ushana (Assyrian)
* Aziz Daneshrad (Jewish)
* Rostam Shahzadi (Zoroastrian)

Presiding officers

Hossein-Ali Montazeri was elected as the speaker, instead of Mahmoud Taleghani who was considered the prospect for the position. Other seats also went to supporters of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, including Mohammad Beheshti who received the most votes for the deputy speaker, and Hassan Ayat who became the secretary.

The presiding officers of the assembly were as follows:

Apportionment

According to the enactment of the Council of the Islamic Revolution, the assembly had 69 seats which were apportioned among the 24 provinces by population. While any province was entitled to at least one representative, however small its population, each 500,000 residents were considered represented by one seat. 4 additional seats were reserved for religious minorities, including two for Christians (one allocated to Armenians and the other to Assyrians and Chaldeans collectively), and one for each of the Jewish and the Zoroastrian communities.

The number of seats dedicated to each province and the population which it was based on, were as follows:

Goal

The assembly's work was part of a highly contentious time during the Iranian Revolution that saw the breakup of the original alliance of secular, radical, religious, and theocratic groups that all united to overthrow the Shah. It was to the Assembly that Khomeini proclaimed "the ''velayat-e faqih'' is not something created by the Assembly of Experts. It is something that God has ordained," which clashed with comments such as, "our intention is not that religious leaders should themselves administer the state," from ''Le Monde'' newspaper October 25, 1978, "in one of his last interviews before leaving Paris," p.14 of ''The Last Revolution'' by Robin Wright, c2000) (source: Benard and Khalilzad, ''The Government of God'') made before the victory of the revolution.

The Assembly of Experts for Constitution is not to be confused with the later Assembly of Experts of the Leadership, which is a body created by the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran to elect and supervise Iran's Supreme Leader.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1st Assembly Of Experts
Politics of Iran
*Main1st
Organisations of the Iranian Revolution