Tehran, July 16: An Iranian minister who also holds a post in the Guardian Council has criticized a recent move that bans him from serving in both positions at the same time.
Commenting on the decision recently announced by the country’s Expediency Council, Minister of Justice Gholam-Hossein Elham claimed that it was ‘issuing directives in contradiction to the Constitution’.
Led by Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the Expediency Council is a high-ranking body within the Islamic Republic with supervisory powers and the authority to settle disagreements between the Parliament (Majlis) and the Guardian Council.
The Guardian Council is a 12-member body tasked with overseeing election procedures and parliamentary legislation.
“It seems that at the moment it is in the interests of the country not to abide by the Constitution,” Elham told reporters ironically on the sidelines of a Wednesday cabinet meeting.
Elham did say, however, that the government would follow the Expediency Council ruling if the legality of the decision is proved.
The minister also refused to give a definitive answer to a question about which post he would retain if forced to choose.
Elham, who also holds the position of spokesman for the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that the future of his career within the executive body depends on the president’s plans for his new government.
Earlier this week, the Expediency Council announced that no one is permitted to be a member of the country’s Guardian Council while simultaneously holding a post in a government body.
The Council also gave government officials to whom this new legislation applies two months to resign from one of their posts.
—–Agencies