The Relationship Between Law and Politics in the Legislative Process of the Islamic Republic of Iran: An Institutional Study of the Guardian Council and the Expediency Discernment Council

Abstract

The relationship between law and politics is regarded as one of the fundamental issues in constitutional law studies and governance theory. In many political systems, legislative decision-making processes are shaped through the interaction between legal reasoning, institutional considerations, and public policy requirements. This study aims to explain the pattern of this interaction within the constitutional structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran and specifically focuses on the role of two key institutions: the Guardian Council and the Expediency Discernment Council. The principal question of the article concerns how legal arguments and political considerations are combined and organized within the decision-making processes of these two institutions. The theoretical framework of the research is based on the model of “law endogenous to politics,” a model that analyzes the relationship between law and politics at the normative, institutional, and functional levels and provides the possibility for examining the manner in which legal reasoning is formed and applied within institutional structures. The research method is qualitative and relies on institutional analysis and content analysis of legal arguments in a sample of the decisions issued by these two institutions. The findings demonstrate that the Guardian Council primarily operates at the normative level, with its main focus being the supervision of conformity between legislation, the Constitution, and Islamic legal principles, whereas the Expediency Discernment Council operates more at the functional and policy-oriented level and performs the role of an institutional mediator in resolving conflicts between the Parliament and the Guardian Council. Consequently, it may be concluded that within the constitutional structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a form of institutional division of labor has emerged between these two institutions, through which the relationship between legal stability and political flexibility in the legislative process is managed. Furthermore, the framework of “law endogenous to politics” provides an appropriate analytical tool for explaining this interaction.