Vice-President: We Will Correct the Draft

Iran’s vice-president for legal affairs Elham Aminzadeh told Rooz that the published text of the civil rights charter is only a draft and that it would be concluded only after public feedback, civil society and the president’s view on it. Ms Aminzadeh also said that the draft had been prepared by considering the views of 200 jurists and that it had been posted on her website on orders from the president to get feedback for a final text.

The preparation of such a charter had been one of Hassan Rouhani’s campaign promises. He announced the drafting of the document last week live on television and called on the public to provide their views on it. The first draft was posted on the VP’s website and people have begun to comment on it.

Hasel Dase, a Kurdish representative in the Majlis and a prominent Kurdish activist told Rooz that of the 20 pages of the document only two lines were reserved for ethnic and religious minorities. “The jurists who prepared this document were very shortsighted or disregarded this issue. We can even say they deliberately did this to make people less hopeful and Mr. Rouhani must demand an explanation from them. The Kurdish people too reserve the right to have a response on this,” he said.

Dase continued, “We have asked all those feel a sense of responsibility on this issue and desire to bring the government and people closer, to go to the website and post their complaints. Certainly what has been drafted falls short of the right response, and if I don’t call it an insult it is disrespectful and disregards” the rights and needs of the minorities. “The people of Kurdistan are very upset that governments only want them to vote for them,” he added. He believes that the current constitution is far stronger regarding minority rights that the draft charter. “The Kurdish people gave a positive response to Mr. Rouhani’s calls and want an end to this securitized atmosphere in Kurdistan and replaced with economic, cultural etc programs. If the government disregards this, it will itself be the loser,” he elaborated.

Kambiz Noroozi, an attorney, echoed these sentiments to Rooz. “The responsibility lies with Ms Aminzadeh who prepared the draft with Dr Ashena from the Strategic Studies Center. There has been no institutional cooperation with civil organizations and prominent professors had not been consulted. Initially, they had announced that Dr Hashemi and Dr Mehrivar were members of the drafting committee, but that turned out not true,” he said.

There have been plenty of criticism by jurists, lawyers and other specialists since the posting of the civil rights draft but vice-president Aminzadeh defended the text by saying that it was only the “first step” in finalizing the charter.

When asked whether she was in charge of preparing the draft, whether other lawyers had been consulted, and that some said there was no implementation guarantee for it, she said, “We have only posted the draft on orders of the president, to get public feedback. We utilized the views of 200 jurists and have listed the meetings we had with the major law schools in the country. So we should allow the public to provide their feedback and then we shall talk of the details, not now.”

She continued, “This is the first step and the product of three months of work, utilizing the assistance of human rights professors – and I am a lecturer on human rights as well. The final document will depend on this feedback and the president’s view.”

Rooz asked about the criticism that some people had about the provision that the government would be enforcing the stipulations in the charter, rather than an independent body, Aminzadeh said, “Someone must supervise it. Look at other countries: they have not given it to civil society to implement it either. A responsible authority must do it, unless you simply want it to remain at the rhetoric level.”

Kambiz Noroozi elaborated on his criticism. “The problem is that the team that worked on this was not a good one. This charter invents the wheel from the beginning and has presented some common sense issues such as that all citizens have the right to live. This is like telling a journalist that he must buy a ballpoint pen for his work. The charter in fact does not know what it wants to say, it is lost and confused. It does not know where it must lead to.” He also complained about entrusting the implementation of the provisions of the charter to the government. “The right place to monitor its implementation is not the government. It is in the process whereby civil institutions and the media who should monitor its implementation.” He added that the provisions of the charter were in fact repetitions of what already exist in laws and concluded, “Civil rights problems will not be resolved with these generalities. Civil rights issues exist despite the presence of similar laws and regulations. Everybody understands that the problem is not the absence of laws, but somewhere else, such as the structure and organization of the government. The first question that should have been asked is why the executive branch does not implement the laws.  For example, why government contracts are not made public. The issue is that the structure of the executive branch is in itself a barrier to the fulfillment of civil rights. It is the government that must be stopped from violating civil rights.”

Another attorney Nemat Ahmadi wrote back on the website saying that the charter would not solve the issues. He explained that “in 2004 the then head of the judiciary branch of Iran’s government issued an order to all police and judiciary agencies to respect civil rights. The Majlis picked this up and turned it into law and ultimately it was approved by the Guardians Council and the President. But till today this law is not enforced. If it had been, then there would have been no need for a case to be filed for Satareh Beheshti. In this case the violations committed by a government employee brought forth a costly case to the whole regime.”

Shirin Ebadi, Iran’s Nobel Prize winner also spoke about the charter draft to Rah Dighar website and said, “Mr. Rouhani’s draft looks like it is re-inventing the wheel. Not only is its implementation mechanism flawed. Rather than writing a new legal document, the president should have worked on removing the flaws of existing laws on the subject. The sixth Majlis passed a law on civil rights that the president should work to strengthen. The same is true for the constitution and the principles of people’s sovereignty which are identified in the document. This charter has issues in its content and has no place for discussion.”

But criticism has not remained confined to lawyers. Former Kurdish Majlis representative Dase is just an example of non-legal unhappiness with the charter. In time, the views of other parts of Iranian society will be posted and presented. The question remains how the administration will respond and where will this exercise in addressing civil rights violations by state authorities end.