12 November 2024
On November 9th, the Supreme Disciplinary Court of Judges in Iran annulled the result of 33rd election of the Iran Central Bar Association under the pretext of not respecting Islamic principles.
On October 9th, more than 6000 lawyers of the most important bar association in Iran casted their vote to elect the board of directors of this bar association. In an unprecedented way, the Supreme Disciplinary Court of Judges annulled this election.
Apart from occurrence of minor violations during the election regarding election campaign of candidates, the most important reason mentioned in the verdict for this annulment are “non respect of Islamic principles” and “election of incompetent lawyers”.
The independence of bar associations in Iran is under threat due to the systematic interference of the judiciary in internal affairs of lawyers. According to Iranian regulations candidates to any bar association’s directory board shall be pre-screened and pre-approved by the judiciary before presenting them as candidates. Although this unlawful method had been already respected; the judiciary rejected the result of this election.
With this act of judiciary being done, there is nothing left of independence of lawyers in Iran.