...

Deputy speaker: Iranian parliament might review country's cabinet of ministers

Iran Materials 28 December 2012 15:32 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 28 /Trend S.Isayev, T. Jafarov/

Iranian parliament may have to review country's cabinet of ministers, The deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament (Majlis) Mohammad-Reza Bahonar recently said, Fars reported.

Yesterday, Ahmadinejad gave an order to dismiss Health minister Marziyeh Vahid Dastjerdi from her post. After the order was executed, it caused criticism among parliamentary members.

According to the parliamentarians, since there are some 5-6 months left before Ahmadinejad's government to change, there was no need for issuing such order.

"Iranian Parliament's Presidium will look into the issue of numerous changes made to the cabinet of ministers," Bahonar said. "If it is found out that the number of ministers either dismissed or changed posts, is more than half, then the the parliament must approve government's legitimacy again."

According to the 136th article of the Iranian constitution, the government's legitimacy has to be reviewed by the Parliament's Presidium, if half of staff of cabinet of ministers is changed after approval.

In such case, if the cabinet of ministers undergoes changes, then the plenary powers of the ministers must be approved by the parliament again.

It should be noted that since 2009, the number of ministries in Iran diminished from 21 to 18.

According to Iranian media, up until today, since Ahmadinejad's second term in 2009, the president has fired or substituted the following ministers:

Manouchehr Mottaki (state secretary), Kazem Mir Kazemi (oil minister), Hamid Behbahani (transport minister), Sadeg Mahsuli (minister of social welfare), Ali Akbar Mehrabian (industry minister), Rza Taghipour (minister of communications), Marziyeh Vahid Dastjerdi (health minister), and Mohammad Abbasi.

In case with Mohammad Abbasi, he was first fired from his post at the Ministry of cooperatives, and later appointed to the post of minister of sports. In Iranian constitution, this change counts as "two changes".

This kind of problem has already been observed once during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's first term as president, when the heads of 21 ministries, were changed 9 times.

The problem caused problems for Ahmadinejad's cabinet of ministers. Resigns, impeachments followed afterwards. Back then, 8 ministers were dismissed from their posts.

Tags:
Latest

Latest