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).
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.