The Prosecution and Political Proceeding System of the Executive Power Senior Officials in the 1906 and 1979 Constitutions of Iran

The bilateral nature of the political crimes (by and against the government) and also the separate prosecution and proceeding system for the senior officials of the executive power concerning the normal and political crimes were designated in the supplementary Constitution of 1907 and consequently the ordinary laws of the previous legal system. This approach was followed in the draft Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 but at the end, it was solely the political crimes against the government and the manner of prosecution and proceeding of normal crimes of the executive power senior officials appeared in the Articles 168 and 140. The accusation, prosecution and proceeding system regarding the political charges of the government officials despite lengthy negotiations and two-time voting were not passed by the constituent assembly of the Constitution. This research through an exploratory method based on studying the historical resources and documents seeks to answer whether the authors of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the framework of the normative rationale and the spirit governing the entirety of this law, deliberately eliminated the system of special proceedings for the crimes of the political officials. The negotiations of the constituent assembly indicate such elimination was carried out regardless of the designed model in the draft Constitution. Hence, the Constitution is defective in two aspects: anticipating the full system for proceeding the crimes of the government officials (both normal and political crimes), and the establishment of a comprehensive and coercive regime for proceeding the political crimes (both by and against the government).