The Response to the Doubts about Approbatory Supervision from a Fiqhi Viewpoint

According to the principle 99 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Guardians’ Council is responsible for supervising the elections. This sort of supervision defined by the Guardians’ Council is called ‘approbatory supervision’. The author reviews and discusses the criticisms and doubts raised about approbatory supervision in the light ofthe fiqhi viewpoint, and establishes the following ideas: 1. Relying on the principle of acquittance to reject approbatory supervision is incorrect, because in spite of the various meanings which the principle of acquittance has in fiqh, in criminal law and in civil law, no one of the meanings of the principle of acquittance has any relation with elections orwith the assessment of candidates’ qualifications. Therefore, the principle of acquittance is particularly out of the case. 2. Relying on the principle of charity is also incorrect because of the fact that this principle is regarded valild only when doubt is raised and that it is related to one particular action and has nothing to do with indvidual's conditions andqualifications. Therefore, the principle of charity is irrelevant too. 3. The principle of lack of guardianship is not a barrier to the approbatory supervision of the Guardian's Council, because in some cases, the principle of lack of guardianship, has no evidence for guardianship whereas the supervision of the Guardians’ Council is of ample evidence. 4. It is incorrect to rely on Imam Khomeini's fiqhi idea about the status of approbatory supervision because his fiqhi idea is said to be inconsistent with such interpretation. Consequently, the mentioned supervision in the principle 99 of the Constitution is absolute, i. e. it is not restricted to supervision of certain kind to obtain information but it includes overall supervision – referred to as "approbatory".