Banking Draft for Abrogation of the Monetary and Banking Law of Iran

The Iranian State Monetary and Banking Act of 1972 has adapted progressive laws of European countries in the structures and organs of the Iranian Central Bank. In its other part, this Act has dealt with banking operations, the procedure for establishment of private banks and the criteria for their operations, similar to the banks in European countries and the United States. Nevertheless, the Parliament draft bill on the Banking of the Islamic Republic of Iran was put on the agenda of the public session of the Parliament in August 2022 and approved some of its confusing articles with the extreme limitations of broadcast of the debates by the Voice and Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the state radio and television. Those who are handling the draft bill and have no legal expertise and are in fact after abrogation of the State Monetary and Banking Act.The legal interest and its rate which have been adopted in valuable legislations during the modern period of the Iranian judiciary have distinguished the legal concept of interest from “usury.” Towards the international banking system, Iranian banks have also been able to perform their duties in accepting deposits of the people and payment of bank loans. The so-called, “Free Usuary Banking Operations Act,” passed in 1983, with reactionary attitudes and ignoring the separation of the legal concept of “interest” from “usury” and the legislative achievements of Iran after the Constitutional Revolution of 1907, brought to disarray the provisions of the banking part of the State Monetary and Banking Act. The superficial and impractical provisions of the 1983 Act broke down the demarcations of the specialized banking operations, which paved the way for the wide scope violations of Article 34 of the State Monetary and Banking Act, barring the banks to enter into real estate transactions, purchase of shares in commercial companies and engage in entrepreneurial activities. The banks and non-banking credit institutions having entered into real estate and tower building business, the living environment of the big cities has been destroyed and the capital of the banks has become inaccessible for production and creating employment.For the protection of the rights of the people and security of their deposits, banks in all countries operate under constant supervision so that they would not exceed from the scope of their specialized functions and duly comply with the standards. However, the proposed draft bill, put on the agenda of the Parliament last August, wants to legalize the operations of non-banking credit institutions and allow them to enter into the scope of activities of the banks. For years, this kind of institutions has imposed heavy losses on their depositors and the former president of the country in response to their protests has unduly paid huge amounts of money from the national capitals for compensation of the losses of the depositors of such institutions, which itself is an illegal appropriation of state properties and amenable to prosecution.Finally, the sponsors of this draft bill are pursuing to extend the disarrayed provisions of the Free Usury Banking Operations Act to the jurisdictions of the Iranian Central Bank and thereby also bring to disarray the valuable provisions of the State Monetary and Banking Act on the part concerning the Central Bank. For this reason, five former governors-general of the Central Bank, being concerned about it, have requested that the proposed draft bill on Banking of the Islamic Republic of Iran be excluded from the agenda of the Parliament. I also have dealt with some of the principal criticisms of the draft bill in this Article and have proposed that the draft bill be excluded from the agenda of the Parliament. If there is a will in the government and the Parliament for updating the State Monetary and Banking Act, they must benefit from the assistance of legal scholars, law schools, those involved in the organs of the State banking system and the modern and progressive monetary and banking laws of other countries such as that of France.