IRAN: REGIME STALWARTS TURNS OUT IN FORCE AT JUDICIARY HAIL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RPO DUBAI 000340

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 8/19/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL IR
SUBJECT: IRAN: REGIME STALWARTS TURNS OUT IN FORCE AT JUDICIARY HAIL
AND FAREWELL

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CLASSIFIED BY: Alan Eyre, Director, Iran Regional Presence
Office, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)

1. (C) SUMMARY. IRIG regime stalwarts showed up in force at an
August 17 ceremony to greet the new head of the Judiciary
Hojjatoleslam Sadegh Larijani (brother of Majlis Speaker Ali
Larijani) and to bid farewell to the previous Judiciary head
Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi. This was the first
time that President Ahmadinejad and Expediency Council Chairman
Ayatollah Rafsanjani shared a stage since the early June
commemoration of Ayatollah Khomeini's death. Incoming Judiciary
Head Hojjatoleslam Sadegh Larijani comes to the position with no
substantive executive, management or judicial experience, and it
seems likely Supreme Leader Khamenei picked him primarily for
reasons of personal loyalty. As such, it is unlikely that
Sadegh will bring substantive changes or increasing order,
professionalism and independence to Iran's corrupt and
politicized Judiciary. END SUMMARY.




2. (C) IRIG regime stalwarts showed up in force at an August 17
morning ceremony to greet the new head of the Judiciary,
Hojjatoleslam Sadegh Larijani and to bid farewell to the
previous Judiciary head Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi
Shahroudi (see Appendix for list of prominent attendees). Most
notably, this was the first time that President Ahmadinejad and
Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Rafsanjani shared a stage
since the early June commemoration of Ayatollah Khomeini's
death, held shortly after Ahmadinejad had publicly excoriated
Rafsanjani for corruption in a televised debate with rival
Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. (COMMENT: While it
is tempting to view the presence of Rafsanjani and others as an
effort to demonstrate IRIG unity; it is more likely that the
turnout reflects primarily obligatory protocol and respect to
the outgoing and incoming Judiciary chiefs. END COMMENT).




3. (U) At the ceremony most speakers in their public comments
drew a link between establishing justice and respecting peoples'
rights on the one hand and peace and security in society on the
other. In his speech incoming Judiciary head Sadegh Larijani
vowed to maintain judicial independence and the impartial
application of justice. The line of his speech most quoted in
Iranian press, and which drew significant applause from
attendees, was that 'no one can presume to give himself the
right to rule against the law and violate citizens' rights and
deprive them of their peace and security. These persons must
know that sooner or later they will be called to judgment and
the rights of the oppressed will be restored. I announce here
and now that I will not tolerate such actions from anybody and
will entrust all violators to the machinery of justice.'




4. (U) AHMADINEJAD VS. RAFSANJANI: In his speech Ahmadinejad,
in a reference that many took to refer to Rafsanjani, said that
corruption, violations of peoples' rights, lawbreaking and
people who create a culture of lawlessness in society must be
dealt with and the holders of wealth and power must be called to
justice. In his speech, immediately after Ahmadinejad's,
Rafsanjani did not respond to Ahmadinejad's comments but pointed
out that if the people despair of their rights being respected,
anarchy and lawlessness will increase in society.




5. (U) ATMOSPHERICS: According to Iranian press accounts of
the ceremony President Ahmadinejad showed up over one hour after
the ceremony's start. It was much observed in Iranian press
that although Rafsanjani stood up as a sign of respect when
Ahmadinejad arrived, Ahmadinejad (and Guardian Council head
Jannati) departed the ceremony immediately after his speech and
before Rafsanjani's speech. When Rafsanjani arrived, the
audience greeted him loudly.



PERFORMANCE EVALUATION




6. (C) OUTGOING -- SHAHROUDI: It was also announced on August
17 that similar to his predecessor Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi,
Supreme Leader Khamenei has appointed departing Judiciary Head
Ayatollah Shahroudi to be a member of the Guardian Council, the
entity charged with vetting Majlis legislation and also
supervising elections. Also like his predecessor, Shahroudi
came to the position as Judiciary head at a time of tumult,

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shortly after the 1999 Tehran University riots. At the start
of his tenure, Shahroudi famously compared the Judiciary to
"ruins" which he sought to restore, and the general consensus
seems to be that he indeed was marginally better than his
predecessor, hardline cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi. Among
Shahroudi's achievements was restoring the position of public
prosecutor, removed in 1994 in an attempt to mimic early Islamic
court structures where the judge was the sole judicial official.
Shahroudi also sought to minimize incarnation for offenses and
to refer cases to "dispute resolution councils" instead of
court. He also tried to 'de-Islamicize' punishments, to include
stopping the practice of stoning women, and he also accepted
certain forms of legal equality for women and minorities.




7. (C) Shahroudi also sought to bring some type of order and
modernization to the Judiciary, but it remained a vast, unwieldy
and corrupt bureaucracy riddled with individual fiefdoms, where,
in the words of one IRPO contact, 'justice was sold by the
kilo.' Notably, he had little control over the hardline
conservative Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's Public and Revolutionary
Prosecutor General, who spearheads the judicial anti-reformists.
Shahroudi also consistently allowed political arrests and the
closing scores of reformist newspapers, and he seemingly
exercised no control over handling of political prisoners in
Iran's prisons.




8. (C) INCOMING -- LARIJANI: As for incoming Judiciary head
Hojjatoleslam Larijani, it seems that his most salient
characteristic besides his loyalty to Khamenei is his youth and
inexperience (COMMENT: In the decree naming him as Judicial
head, Supreme Leader Khamenei accurately refers to his clerical
status as 'Hojjatoleslam,' but Iranian media has granted him the
greater title of 'Ayatollah.' It seems likely that Khamenei did
not use the higher rank in order to avoid further alienating his
clerical base. END COMMENT) Sadegh was born in 1960 in Najaf,
Iraq to prominent Grand Ayatollah and Source of Emulation Haj
Mirza Hashem Amoli, one of the major 'Sources of Emulation' in
Najaf and Qom. He comes to this position as the youngest
Judiciary head.




9. (C) Supreme Leader Khamenei appointed him to the Guardian
Council in 2001, where he has served for the last eight years.
Other than serving on the Guardian Council, he has had no
full-time government experience, and a common criticism of his
selection is that he has no executive or management experience
that qualifies him to head a complex organization with over
160,000 employees, nearly nine million annual cases of
litigation and thousands of people in jail. As such, Iranian
press has speculated that he will bring much expertise over from
the Guardian Council to the Judiciary to assist him.




10. (C) Like his other four brothers, Sadegh has no
revolutionary credentials whatsoever, although his official
biography posted on his website says that at the time of the
Revolution he 'realized that the West's cultural threat was no
less than that of its military threat,' and as such he focused
on studying (and presumably countering) Western philosophical
thought. Before the Revolution he was slated to study abroad
under a scholarship, but at the last minute for reasons he has
not mentioned he decided to enter seminary (COMMENT: In talking
about Sadegh Many IRPO interlocutors have repeated a well-known
statement reportedly said by Khomeini that to the effect that
none of the Larijani brothers were trustworthy. END COMMENT).




11. (C) COMMENT: Some Western press has speculated Supreme
Leader Khamenei will use the 'Kennedy-esque' Larijani family as
a counter-weight to Ahmadinejad. This is too simple an
explanation, as family relations do not equate to identical
ideological orientations. For example, Supreme Leader
Khamenei's brother Hadi is an ardent reformist; of the two
Ayatollah Sanei brothers, one is the head of the 15 Khordad
Foundation that put a price on Salmon Rushdie's head, the other
is a progressive cleric who believes in full equality for women.
Even within the Larijani family, Majlis Speaker Ali is firmly
opposed to Ahmadinejad while his brother Mohammad Javad is an
equally fervent supporter of the President. As such, it is
impossible to use his family as a guide to his attitude toward

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Ahmadinejad. What does seem clear is that Khamenei picked Sadegh
not for any expertise or experience, but for reasons of personal
loyalty, a criterion that has guided most if not all of
Khamenei's personnel decisions. As such, it is unlikely that
Sadegh will bring substantive changes or increasing order,
professionalism and independence to Iran's corrupt and
politicized Judiciary, and it is unclear whether he will use his
position to hinder Ahmadinejad's agenda. Similarly, analysis
indicating that Sadegh's appointment bespeaks a 'militarization'
of the Judiciary, based on Sadegh's previous involvement
teaching at IRGC facilities, is equally simplistic. END COMMENT.





APPENDIX: PROMINENT GOVERNMENT ATTENDEES AT JUDICIARY HAIL AND
FAREWELL CEREMONY:



President Ahmadinejad

Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani

Outgoing Judiciary Head Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi
Shahroudi

Incoming Judiciary Head Hojjatoleslam Sadegh Larijani

Expediency Council (EC) Head Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani

EC Secretary Mohsen Rezai

Guardian Counci Head Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati and all other
Guardian Council Members

All members of the Majlis Judicial and Legal Affairs Committee

Majlis First Deputy Speaker Hojjatoleslam Abu Turabi Fard

Head of Supreme Leader's Office Hojjatoleslam Mohammadi
Golpayegani

Former IRGC Commander General Rahim Safavi,

Tehran Police Chief and Law Enforcement Deputy Commander BG
Ahmad Reza Radan

Judiciary Human Rights Head Mohammad Javad Larijani

National Security Secretary Said Jalili

Oil Minister Nozari

IRGC Head Jaafari

Hojjatoleslam Nateq Nuri

Interior Minister Mahsouli

Tehran Mayor GHALIBAF
EYRE