Feasibility of Appointing a Vice President in the Legal Jurisdiction of the Ministries

According to Article 124 of the Constitution; The president can have deputies to carry out his legal duties. On the other hand, Article 133 of the Constitution states that the responsibility of the ministries is on the president's chosen minister who has received a vote of confidence from the Islamic Council. Since, according to Article 113 of the Constitution, the President, who is the highest official of the country, heads the executive branch, including the ministries -except in matters directly related to the Supreme Leader’s powers, the powers of a vice president may interfere with the powers of ministers. Considering the obscurity of Article 124 and the legal gap regarding the limits to the powers of the vice presidents, the framework grounded for the powers of the vice presidents and the limits to the powers of the ministers should be determined.

Research Question:

This essay seeks to answer the question "Could the president appoint deputies with duties that are in the jurisdiction of the ministries?". The exact answer to this question depends on analyzing whether, on a legal basis, it is possible to appoint a vice president in the jurisdiction of the ministries or not. On the other hand, it should be investigated as to what extent this type of appointment has occurred in the legal system of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and what is the opinion of the Guardian Council as the main judge in this matter? And finally, considering the capacities provided in law, how can this conflict be prevented or solved?

Literature Review:

Before this research, the subject of vice presidents has not only been examined under the general concept of the president and the first vice president’s powers but also specifically in articles such as "The legal requirements of delegating the powers of the president to deputies in Iran's constitutional law system with regards to the opinions of the Guardian Council", "A look at the assignment of president’s legal duties to the deputies" and "Regulations for the appointment and the position of special representatives and deputy presidents". However, these articles did not deal with the issue of any interference between the competence of the president and the ministers and thus, their topic is fundamentally different from this research. Regarding the relationship between the vice presidents and the ministries, there has been a report on "carrying out executive affairs through the vice presidents instead of the ministries", which is also different from this research because it focuses on the possibility of doing executive affairs by the vice presidents instead of the ministries, irrespective of the issue of interference of their powers. Therefore, the innovation of this research is first, in its topic of examining the conflict between the legal powers of the vice presidents and ministers and, second, in its analysis at two theoretical and practical levels, and third, in its examination of the plausible legal answers and providing an innovative solution to overcome this problem.

The current essay has been done through library research and adopting a descriptive-analytical approach meaning that, in addition to identifying the qualifications of vice presidents and ministers, we have analyzed the research problem using logical arguments.

According to Article 124 of the Constitution, the president can have deputies to perform his legal duties. By examining the detailed summary of the deliberations of the Constitutional Revision Council, the proposed arguments, and the systematic approach taken to the enactment of the Constitution, we find that the deputy is considered a representative of the president by the legislator and a non-authentic person, and since the authority of the president is limited, he cannot appoint a deputy within the jurisdiction of the ministries.From the opinions of the Guardian Council regarding the issue of the "consulting minister", it is also deduced that the president can create institutions under his supervision and delegate matters to them to handle some extra-ministerial affairs and his special duties such as "supervising the work of ministers", "harmonizing government decisions", "formulating the government's programs and policies", "synchronizing and policy-making of executive bodies" and "mobilizing the facilities of executive bodies for a specific issue", but other duties and executive affairs that are not part of the president’s special duties which are under the jurisdiction of the ministries, cannot be entrusted to his affiliated institutions, and such assignment would be against the Constitution.In the current status, vice presidents are assigned in four ways: by the Constitution, the resolution of the supreme councils, the statutes, and by the decree of the president. On the other hand, the only bodies that determine the ministers’ powers are the statutes, and in case of a conflict between the powers of the vice presidents and the ministers, conflict resolution of the above-mentioned bodies with the statutory law should be examined. In case of adding to or changing the powers of the ministers by the statutory law and their conflicts with the powers of the vice presidents; If the founding document of the vice president is the statutory law or the decree of the president, the recent statute is applied, but if the founding document is the Constitution or the decree of the supreme councils, the recent law is invalid. To change or establish the powers of the vice-presidents, only the parliament or supreme councils such as the Cultural Revolution Council have the authority to appoint vice-presidents acting in duties that are considered to be in the jurisdiction of the ministers.

A conflict between the powers of the ministers and the vice presidents is only problematic where the founding body for appointing the vice president is the decree of the president himself, and in order to get out of this problem, it is possible to use the capacity provided by the constitution in the matter of supervision of the General Inspection Organization of the Country, the supervision of the parliament in Article 90 of the Constitution, and the case law of the Court of Administrative Justice; However, these solutions are difficult to reach and only reactive; Therefore, it is suggested that in the statutory law, the president -while appointing the vice presidents- should be required to approve bylaws on the limits of their authority in the cabinet so that the speaker of the parliament can prevent the interference of the authorities a priori, and that filing a well-grounded complaint in the administrative court of justice would become less complicated and problematic.