TEHRAN, 7 May 2004 — A new law passed by Iran’s outgoing pro-reform Parliament banning torture and guaranteeing the rights of citizens has overcome its final hurdle by winning the approval of a conservative watchdog body, press reports said yesterday. The Council of Guardians, acting with unusual speed, ruled that there was nothing in the law that contradicted the constitution or Islamic Shariah law, the reports said, quoting the council’s spokesman Ebrahim Azizi.
The Guardians had systematically rejected virtually all of the major reformist laws which the Parliament attempted to pass during its term, and ruled out last year the ratification of the International Convention Against Torture.
But they took less than two days to approve the new law, passed on Tuesday in an emergency debate. The legislation strengthens rights already enshrined in Iranian law and the constitution, but by giving the force of law to directives issued last week by the conservative justice department.
Iranian conservatives are expected to strengthen their grip on the next Parliament in a second round of voting today. The new Majlis, which takes office on May 27, will leave pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami a lonely lame duck in the year to the presidential poll, although its precise policies are still unclear.
The second round, to choose 57 deputies from 39 constituencies to complete the 290-seat Parliament, comes 11 weeks after polls which saw reformists totally defeated amid widespread allegations of vote-rigging.
The bans on 2,300 hopefuls, largely on the grounds they did not respect the principles of the Islamic republic, resulted in an absolute majority for a coalition of clerics, conservatives and centrists from the first round on Feb. 20.
