The Guardian Council

The Guardian Council has three constitutional mandates: a) it has veto power over legislation passed by the parliament (Majles); b) it supervises elections; and c) it approves and disqualifies candidates seeking to run in local, parliamentary, presidential, and Assembly of Experts elections. The council consists of twelve members: six constitutional law experts and six experts of Islamic law.

This section features the decisions and opinions of the Guardian Council on legislation passed by the parliament from the first parliament to the seventh (1980-2008); opinions on constitutional questions (1980-2010); the negotiations and debates in the Guardian Council in 1359 and 1360 (1980 – 1982); a declaration issued by the Guardian Council relating to the disputed 2009 election (the Council’s defense of the accuracy of the vote tally); and the Guardian Council’s statement on the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA).

Source: The Research Center of the Guardian Council

Percentage of Legislation from each Majlis Approved by the Guardian Council

Round of Majlis Date of first GC opinion on legislations Date of last GC opinion on legislations Number of Majlis ratified legislation Final number of legislations approved by GC Percentage of legislations approved
First July 22, 1980 May 26, 1984 410 357 87.0%
Second July 5, 1984 June 8, 1988 336 284 84.5%
Third June 23, 1988 June 15, 1992 265 226 85.2%
Fourth July 17, 1992 June 12, 1996 357 321 89.9%
Fifth July 29, 1996 May 24, 2000 371 326 87.9%
Sixth June 29, 2000 May 26, 2004 444 337 75.9%
Seventh July 19, 2004 June 11, 2008 364 300 82.4%
Eighth July 2, 2008 June 27, 2012 355 301 84.8%
Ninth July 7, 2012 July 4, 2015 132 107 81.0%

Source: Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Kouorsh Rahimkhani, Postrevolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook (Syracuse University Press, 2018), p. 58.