75th Constitutional Article and Legislative Branch's Powers in the Budgeting Process

The role of legislative branch in the budgeting process varies in different countries. This difference sometimes is attributed to countries’ governmental structure. The constitution, which in fact is manifestation of political structure in all countries, determines structure and function of different branches and institutions. In the budgeting process, in turn, law has determined tasks and functions of different branches. Thus, legislative branches can be divided in three categories in term of their role in the budgeting process: (1) Parliaments of limited powers in the budgeting process; (2) Parliaments of unlimited powers in the budgeting process; and (3) Parliaments of the balancing powers in the budgeting process. Studying the Iranian Constitution shows that Iranian legislature can be categorized as a institution that have power to balance the budget. Thus, although Iranian Parliament has a general power to enact; according to articles 75 and 52 of Iranian Constitution, this power faces major limitations. First, called as general limitation, is necessity of consistency of statutory laws adopted by parliament with the Holy Shariah and the Constitution. Secondly, applied to budget, some limitations has been outlined in articles related to budget in the Constitution. Meanwhile, article 75 is of more importance, which is related to the principle of “balance in the budget”. In other words, the Majlis can not change public income and expenditure so that interrupts the Budget Act. The Guardian Council, in comparatively commenting on proposals by MPs, only is charged with ensuring the seeming compatibility of the legislation passed by the Majlis with the Constitution because it doesn’t have necessary economic means. Therefore, in many cases, it is unclear whether estimated resources are sufficient for paying for costs related to proposals - which if not, an imbalance within budget may follow.