General Policies of Principle 44 of the Constitution; Informal Constitutional Amendment or Using the Capacity of Principle 44 System of Iran

The informal Constitutional amendment is a process which alters the meaning and concept of the Constitution without changing its text. This process which may happen consciously or unconsciously as a result of the actions of governmental authorities and entities, changes the Constitution outside its formal amendment mechanism and in fact infringes that. One of the issues likely to have altered the Constitution in this way is the adoption of general policies of principle 44 by the Supreme Leader so that as a result of these policies, important evolutions have taken place in the way of investment, ownership and management of those envisioned in the beginning of the principle.
This paper seeks to examine the ratio between the general policies of principle 44 and the content of this principle with an analytic approach. The question is whether the Constitution has been changed with these policies or not. Simultaneous regard to the content of the beginning and last paragraph of principle 44, alternativeness of principle 44 from the viewpoint of Constitutional legislator, possibility of devolving the issues set forth in the beginning of the principle to non-governmental sector even prior to the adoption of the mentioned policies and other evidences all prove that the general policies have been in accordance with the Constitution and in line with principle 44.