Document Type : Original Article
Highlights
Summary
Pathology of the decision-making system of Islamic councils in the
light of the principle of transparency
Transparency is considered as one of the most important elements of good governance, and if its nature is carefully considered, it can even be considered as a guarantor of other elements of good governance. On the other hand, Islamic councils, especially at the village and city levels, besides being an important example for the principle of decentralization, as a people's institution, are also considered one of the main elements of the governance system. This means that although the government includes the presidency, ministries, state institutions and state companies as well as institutions such as the Islamic Council and courts are considered elements of governance. But the Islamic councils, as institutions related to local decentralization, are a manifestation of people's participation in the administration of local affairs and cannot be called the government, therefore, they are one of the examples of governance in the country. In connection with the category of Islamic councils, by accepting the importance of transparency, its position and function can be considered at different levels and layers. What is noticed in this article is the position of the principle of transparency in the decision-making system of Islamic councils In fact, the issue is, as an example of the governance system, to what extent are Islamic councils legally required to comply with the principle of transparency in their decision-making processes? The decision-making system of Islamic councils can be analyzed from two different ways in relation to the principle of transparency. On the one hand, the transparency of the monitoring process of the Islamic councils on the performance of the central government should be considered. Because the supervision of the Islamic councils on the performance of the central government, as mentioned in the 100th article of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, naturally requires the transparency of the central government and the access of the Islamic councils to the necessary documents. In other words, the decision-making of the Islamic councils, on the one hand, is related to the cases where these authorities want to monitor the performance of the central government. In this connection, it should be seen what kind of process the ordinary legislator has established for this purpose and whether this process is transparent or not? On the other hand, the decision-making process of the Islamic councils, apart from the cases of monitoring the central government, which in practice constitutes the major part of the decision-making system of the councils, needs to be examined from the perspective of compliance or non-compliance with the principle of transparency. A look at the Islamic councils and especially the decision-making system of these councils shows that we still have a long way to go in terms of compliance with the principle of transparency. Although in some cases, such as the openness of the meetings, the legislator has emphasized the need for transparency in the decision-making process in the councils, but there are damages in the details of the matter. For example, regarding the public nature of the meetings, the legislator has failed to put strong guarantees or has not mentioned about the public broadcast of the meetings online. In other cases, such as the publication of approvals, there have been shortcomings, the most important of which is the non-obligation of the councils to create a system to update their codified and revised sets of regulations.
