The Laws and Governmental Structure of Iran

The Laws and Governmental Structure of Iran In the spring of 1979, Irans Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was ousted from power and the exiled Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to take control of a new form of government in this ancient land in what has become known as the Iranian Revolution in 1979. On April 1, 1979, the Kingdom of Iran became the Islamic Republic of Iran after a national referendum. The new theocratic government structure was complex  and included a mixture of elected and unelected officials. Who is who in Irans government? How does this government function? The Supreme Leader At the apex of Irans government stands the  Supreme Leader. As head of state, he has broad powers, including command of the armed forces, appointment of the head of the judiciary and of half of the Guardian Councils members, and confirmation of presidential election results. However, the Supreme Leaders power is not entirely unchecked. He is selected by the Assembly of Experts, and could even be recalled by them (although this has never actually happened.) So far, Iran has had two Supreme Leaders: the Ayatollah Khomeini, 1979-1989, and the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 1989-present. The Guardian Council One of the most powerful forces in Irans government is the Guardian Council, which consists of twelve top Shia clerics. Six of the council members are appointed by the Supreme Leader, while the remaining six are nominated by the judiciary and then approved by the parliament. The Guardian Council has the power to veto any bill passed by parliament if it is judged inconsistent with the Iranian Constitution or with Islamic law. All bills must be approved by the council before they become law. Another important function of the Guardian Council is the approval of potential presidential candidates. The highly conservative council generally blocks most reformists and all women from running. The Assembly of Experts Unlike the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council, the Assembly of Experts is directly elected by the people of Iran. The assembly has 86 members, all clerics, who are elected for eight-year terms. Candidates for the assembly are vetted by the Guardian Council. The Assembly of Experts is responsible for appointing the Supreme Leader and supervising his performance. In theory, the assembly could even remove a Supreme Leader from office. Officially based in Qom, Irans holiest city, the assembly often actually meets in Tehran or Mashhad. The President Under the Iranian Constitution, the President is head of the government. He is charged with implementing the constitution  and managing domestic policy. However, the Supreme Leader controls the armed forces and makes major security and foreign policy decisions, so the power of the presidency is rather sharply curtailed. The president is elected directly by the people of Iran for a four-year term. He can serve no more than two consecutive terms  but can be elected again after a break. That is to say, for example, that a single politician could be elected in 2005, 2009, not in 2013, but then again in 2017. The Guardian Council vets all potential presidential candidates and usually rejects most reformers and all women. The Majlis - Iran's Parliament Irans unicameral parliament, called the Majlis, has 290 members. (The name literally means place of sitting in Arabic.) Members are directly elected every four years, but again the Guardian Council vets all candidates. The Majlis writes and votes on bills. Before any law is enacted, however, it must be approved by the Guardian Council. Parliament also approves the national budget and ratifies international treaties. In addition, the Majlis has the authority to impeach the president or cabinet members. The Expediency Council Created in 1988, the Expediency Council is supposed to resolve conflicts over legislation between the Majlis and the Guardian Council. The Expediency Council is considered an advisory board for the Supreme Leader, who appoints its 20-30 members from among both religious and political circles. Members serve for five years  and may be reappointed indefinitely. The Cabinet The President of Iran nominates the 24 members of the Cabinet  or Council of Ministers. Parliament then approves or rejects the appointments; it also has the ability to impeach the ministers. The first vice-president chairs the cabinet. Individual ministers are responsible for specific topics such as Commerce, Education, Justice, and Petroleum Supervision. The Judiciary The Iranian judiciary ensures that all laws passed by the Majlis conform with Islamic law (sharia)  and that the law is enforced according to the principles of sharia. The judiciary also selects six of the twelve members of the Guardian Council, who then must be approved by the Majlis. (The other six are appointed by the Supreme Leader.) The Supreme Leader also appoints the Head of the Judiciary, who selects the Chief Supreme Court Justice and the Chief Public Prosecutor. There are several different types of lower courts, including public courts for ordinary criminal and civil cases; revolutionary courts, for national security matters (decided without provision for appeal); and the Special Clerical Court, which acts independently in matters of alleged crimes by clerics, and is overseen personally by the Supreme Leader. The Armed Forces A final piece of the Iranian governmental puzzle is the Armed Forces. Iran has a regular army, air force, and navy, plus the Revolutionary Guard Corps (or Sepah), which is in charge of internal security. The regular armed forces include approximately 800,000 troops total in all branches. The Revolutionary Guard has an estimated 125,000 troops, plus control over the Basij militia, which has members in every town in Iran. Although the exact number of Basij is unknown, it is probably between 400,000 and several million. The Supreme Leader is Commander-in-Chief of the military  and appoints all top commanders. Due to its intricate set of checks and balances, the Iranian government can get bogged down in times of crisis. It includes a volatile mix of elected and appointed career politicians and Shia clerics, from ultra-conservative to reformist. Altogether, Irans leadership is a fascinating case study in hybrid government - and the only functioning theocratic government on Earth today.

Learn About Consonant Clusters in English Grammar

Learn About Consonant Clusters in English Grammar In linguistics, a  consonant cluster (CC)  is a group of two or more consonant sounds that come before (called an onset), after (called a coda) or between (called medial) vowels. Also known simply as a cluster, these occur naturally in written and spoken English - though sometimes may be altered phonetically. This process, called consonant cluster simplification (or reduction) sometimes occurs when at least one consonant in a sequence of adjacent consonants is elided or dropped. In everyday speech, for instance, the phrase  best boy may be pronounced  bes boy, and first time may be pronounced firs time. Onset consonant clusters may occur in two or three initial consonants, wherein three are referred to as CCC while coda consonant clusters can occur in two to four consonant groups. Common Consonant Clusters The written English language contains up to 46 permissible two-item initial consonant clusters, ranging from the common st to the less common sq, but only 9 permissible three-item consonant clusters, as Michael Pearce posits in his book The Routledge Dictionary of English Language Studies. Pearce illustrates the common three-item initial consonant clusters in the following words: spl/  split, /spr/  sprig, /spj/  spume, /str/  strip, /stj/  stew, /skl/  sclerotic, /skr/  screen, /skw/  squad, /skj/  skua, wherein every word must start with an s, be followed by a voiceless stop like p or t and a liquid or glide like l or w.   In terms of codas, or consonant clusters that end words, they may contain up to four items, though they are often truncated in connected speech if the consonant cluster is too long, as in the word glimpsed being acceptably written as glimst. Consonant Cluster Reduction In spoken English and rhetoric, oftentimes consonant clusters will be truncated naturally to increase speed or eloquence of speech, oftentimes dropping the same consonant if it occurs at the end of one word and again at the beginning of the next. This process, called consonant cluster reduction, is relatively variable but confined by linguistic factors that inhibit the operation of reducing these words. Walt Wolfram, writing in Dialect in Society, expounds, with respect to the phonological environment that follows the cluster, the likelihood of reduction is increased when the cluster is followed by a word beginning with a consonant. What this means for average English users is that cluster reduction is more common in phrases like west coast or cold cuts than in west end or cold apple. This technique can also be found in poetry to force similar-sounding words with different consonant endings to rhyme. Take for example the words test and desk, which dont rhyme in their original form, but if one uses consonant cluster reduction, the rhyme Sittin in my des, takin my tes can be forced through truncation, as Lisa Green describes in African American English: A Linguistic Introduction, this is most common in the poetic raps of African American origins in the United States.