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Shahram Raffizadeh

On request from the speaker of Iran’s Majlis (parliament) from the leader of the Islamic ‎Republic of Iran to clarify the President’s opposition to certain laws passed by the ‎legislature, supreme leader ayatollah Khamenei declared the necessity of implementing ‎the Majlis laws.‎

While Iran’s political circles had been discussing the growing differences between the ‎Majlis and the President of Iran over some laws passed by the former, neither had ‎published anything official on the issue until Monday morning. The speaker of the Majlis ‎then announced the position of the leader of Iran to the effect that “all the laws that had ‎gone through the process as identified in the Constitution were mandatory for ‎implementation”.‎

Speaker Haddad Adel said, “In recent months Mr. Ahmadinejad has been occasionally ‎complaining about some of the laws of the Majlis such as those relating to the provincial ‎councils or those to the seasonal changes in banking hours, arguing that these issues were ‎the prerogative of the executive branch of the government.” ‎

Haddad Adel is among the leaders of the same political faction as Ahmadinejad. There ‎have also been some reports about the possibility that he may run as a candidate during ‎the next presidential elections. He revealed that a letter has been sent by Mr. ‎Ahmadineajd, adding that the letter was not a classified document. He then read a short ‎letter to the law makers, during a session, in which the president made references to some ‎of the laws passed by the Majlis, adding that “herewith the government announces its ‎opposition to this law and views it contrary to article 75 of the Constitution.”‎

Haddad Adel said that he was surprised by the letter. He explained his surprise in these ‎terms: “There may be situations when the executive branch may have issues in ‎implementing a particular public law. But to write a letter to the Majlis and declare a law ‎to be in contradiction to the Constitution, which only the Guardians Council can do, is a ‎new idea without any precedence.”‎

He also revealed that in order to avoid any clash between the two branches of ‎government, he had written about the issue to the supreme leader, asking him for his ‎position on the issue.‎

According to Haddad Adel, the leader of the Islamic Republic Ali Khamenei responded ‎to his letter by rejected Ahmadinejad’s opposition to the laws.‎