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 DUBAI 00000340 001.2 OF 003 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 �00A;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, DUBAI 00000340 002.2 OF 003 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 DUBAI 00000340 003.2 OF 003 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