A Judicial Precedent-Based Approach to Scope of Judicial Review of Internal Arbitration Award in Terms of Constitutive Laws

Article 489 of the Iranian Civil Procedure (ICP) provides that an arbitration award in conflict with constitutive laws will be null and void and unenforceable; however, neither the ICP nor any other act established the concept and the instances of such laws and the scope of judicial review or supervision over their enforcement. Under these circumstances, the best approach to identify constitutive laws is through a case-by-case approach. A justice should examine what law has been violated by an arbitrator and whether or not this law, based on the governing situations, directly or indirectly results in limiting or extinguishing a right. A court’s review of this matter may take place upon service or enforcement of or appeal to an arbitration award. The review is only a brief one over the first two stages but takes a more complete form over the third stage. However, even in this third stage, the court may not intervene into questions of fact addressed by the arbitrator, except for special cases.