Economic Analysis of the Guardian Council's Approach in Passing the Labor Law; Case Study of Contractual Freedom

To protect workers and to ensure the minimum privileges and job securities for them, the Labor Bill was passed in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, and in numerous important cases, accepted the government's interference in the relationship between employee and employer and restricted the parties' will to conclude the contract. However, the Guardian Council considered mandatory the parties' agreement in labor contracts in accordance with the primary Sharia rule; even though that agreement didn’t predict minimum wage, vacations and holidays, insurance, severance pay and the like. Indeed, the review of the Guardian Council's comments in this regard indicates that the Council believed in contractual freedom as one of the original Islamic systems and considered its permanent change to be impossible. On the basis of this approach, the Islamic ruler and his agents can only temporarily violate these systems and avoid enforcing them on the basis of necessity and public interest until the removal of the impediments. This article seeks to evaluate the approach of the Guardian Council based on the contractual freedom from the economic perspective. The findings of this study indicate that based on the economic analysis, the Guardian Council's approach, more than that of the current Labor Law, has been to provide both worker and employer benefits and to improve the employment status.