A Reflection on Boundaries of Policymaking and Lawmaking (Case Study: Fifth Development Plan Act in Cultural Affairs)

The subject discussed in this paper is the necessity for separation between law and policy and of course "lawmaking" from "policymaking" with regard to the characteristics of constitutional law of Islamic Republic of Iran. The main motivation for writing this article is analyzing and criticizing the performance of the parliament to adopt some provisions of the Fifth Development Plan Act that seems to be kind of "policy" than "law" and of course to be considered policymaking. To explain and prove, some politicized provisions of the Fifth Development Plan Act in cultural affairs are reviewed. Then policymaking, content, and policymaking authorities are defined and due to the need for separation between lawmaking and policymaking, we held separation "policymaking" in general sense from "policymaking" in a strict sense. In the first sense, policymaking refers to the politicization of government powers and generally, refers to "public policy" and "general policies", but what referred to "policymaking in a strict sense" refers to binding policies that their reference and contents mentioned in the Constitution and in other words, they are considered "constitutional policies". An obvious type of these policies in Iran is "General Policies". The paper compares the Fifth Development Plan Act with cultural policy documents that approved by policymakers and stressed overlapping of the provisions adopted by lawmaker with policymaker. If a lawmaker enacts similar provisions, and in some cases identical with cultural policies as law, it will be unjustifiable in terms of legislation. The main claim explained in this article is that several provisions of the Fifth Development Plan Act meet characters of "policy" but according to the many principles and reasons explained in the article, seems lawmaker must avoid policymaking with using legislative jurisdiction. Although Islamic Consultative Assembly is an exclusive legislative authority and other government institutions should respect the great place contained in the several constitutional principles.