Supreme Leader of Iran
Enable an agent to identify Iran's Supreme Leadership office, establish who may exercise its authority at a specified time, and assess the basis and limits of attributed acts.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read
Researched by: Codex
Purpose and description
Enable an agent to identify Iran's Supreme Leadership office, establish who may exercise its authority at a specified time, and assess the basis and limits of attributed acts.
The Supreme Leader of Iran is the constitutional office at the apex of the Islamic Republic's political and religious authority, grounded in guardianship of the Islamic jurist and distinct from both its incumbent and the presidency.
It can be Resolve references to the Supreme Leader into the office, a dated officeholder or a supporting organisation.; Trace an attributed decision to its authority, prerequisites and institutional counterparts.; Compare documented candidate assessments with the applicable eligibility requirements.; Track succession and interim arrangements without assuming an incumbent remains in office.; Check whether a representative's act falls within a documented delegation.; Flag conflicting accounts of an act's authenticity, legal effect or implementation..
Distinguishing features
The referent must be the continuing constitutional Leadership office, rather than the person occupying it.
Selection by the Assembly of Experts distinguishes the office from the elected Presidency; compare Article 107. [Constitution](https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1979/72964)
Religious eligibility must be assessed against the applicable Leadership provisions, rather than inferred from an ayatollah title alone; compare Articles 5 and 109. [Constitution](https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1979/72964)
A supporting office, representative or interim body must be distinguished from the substantive holder through evidence of its particular authority.
Scope
+ Identity of the Leadership office across constitutional versions
+ Eligibility assessment and selection of an officeholder
+ Powers, procedural conditions and delegation
+ Relations with selecting, consulting and implementing institutions
+ Tenure, incapacity, vacancy, removal and interim authority
+ Attribution of official acts and evidence of their implementation
- Personal biographies and private activities of officeholders
- The Presidency of Iran as a separate office
- Internal organisation of the Assembly of Experts and other state bodies
- Shi'a religious ranks and jurisprudence beyond their relevance to this office
- Military operations and administration of subordinate institutions
- Iran's political system and national history as whole subjects
Characteristics
- Constitutional frame
- Constitutional text, amendment version, applicable date and language Prevents requirements and powers from different constitutional periods being combined.
- Officeholder relationship
- Linked person, accession evidence and effective tenure interval Answers who held the office at the time of an attributed act.
- Leadership continuity
- Occupied; vacant; temporary inability reported; interim arrangements documented; unresolved Determines which authority claims require succession or incapacity evidence.
- Qualification assessment
- For each applicable criterion: documented assessment; disputed assessment; unknown Separates institutional determinations from an agent's opinion of a candidate.
- Authority pathway
- Direct constitutional power; conditional power; delegated exercise; claimed informal influence; unresolved Prevents political influence from being treated automatically as legal competence.
- Institutional counterpart
- Named body or office with a specified selection, consultation, appointment, review or implementation relationship Identifies other actors whose participation matters to a particular decision.
- Delegation scope
- Delegate, instrument, assigned functions, effective dates and revocation evidence Allows attributed acts to be checked against an actual mandate.
- Act verification
- Authenticated text; official report only; independently reported; disputed attribution; unverified Keeps authenticity, legal effect and implementation as separate judgments.
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 6 bundles · 11 layers · 16 findings · 26 questions.
Leadership identity Establishes which Iranian constitutional office a reference denotes.
The title can denote a role, an incumbent or the apparatus surrounding that incumbent.
Office and person
Separates the registered role from people and administrative entities.
Leadership referent
Require contextual evidence before resolving a title or name to this office.
- Does this reference denote the constitutional role, its holder, or the Office of the Supreme Leader? boundary
- Which Persian title and contextual identifiers establish that the reference concerns this role? definition
Constitutional period
Anchors interpretation to the text applicable at the relevant time.
Applicable Leadership text
Record the constitutional version and translation used for each authority assessment.
- Which constitutional provisions and amendments governed the office on the date being assessed? provenance
- Does the source distinguish historical leadership arrangements from those applicable to this case? boundary
Qualification and accession Connects eligibility evidence to the institutional act establishing tenure.
Clerical standing, candidacy and holding the Leadership office require separate evidence.
Leadership eligibility
Structures evidence about the qualifications required for selection.
Qualification determination
Use the applicable criteria and identify who assessed them; Articles 5 and 109 provide the constitutional starting point. [Constitution](https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1979/72964)
- What evidence supports the candidate's required jurisprudential competence and leadership qualities? provenance
- Which body assessed each criterion, and which assessments remain unavailable or contested? provenance
Experts selection
Identifies the decision and procedure through which a person acquires the office.
Accession evidence
Require documentary evidence of selection and its effective date, using Article 107 as the constitutional starting point. [Constitution](https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1979/72964)
- Which Assembly of Experts decision establishes this person's selection? provenance
- What procedural requirements applied, and what evidence establishes when tenure began? definition
Leadership powers Distinguishes categories of Leadership action and their procedural dependencies.
A general description of supreme authority cannot establish whether a particular act was within competence.
Policy and institutional decisions
Examines policy direction, appointments and decisions involving other constitutional offices.
Conditional authority
Assess each claimed policy, appointment, dismissal or clemency act against its specific conditions under Article 110. [Constitution](https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1979/72964)
- Which provision supports this specific act, and does it require consultation, recommendation or a prior determination? action
- Which records show that the required counterpart institutions participated? provenance
Military command
Examines acts attributed to the Leadership's military authority.
Command attribution
Article 110 assigns supreme military command; attribution of particular orders still requires evidence. [Constitution](https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1979/72964)
- Is the act a command appointment, strategic directive or operational order, and what establishes its issuer? boundary
- Which documented command relationship connects the Leadership to the executing actor? provenance
Delegation and official expression Tests who may speak or act for the Leadership and what effect an attributed communication has.
Representatives, published speeches and religious opinions can be mistaken for directly exercisable state authority.
Delegated functions
Connects delegated acts to a specific mandate.
Representative mandate
Article 110 permits delegation of some functions; record the actual mandate rather than infer unlimited authority. [Constitution](https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1979/72964)
- Which instrument authorises this representative or institution to exercise the claimed Leadership function? provenance
- Does the act fall within the mandate's subject, duration and conditions? action
Communications and effect
Separates publication authenticity from the legal character of a statement.
Statement classification
Record whether a communication is presented as a decree, appointment, policy statement, religious opinion or commentary, then verify its claimed effect.
- What original text and publication channel authenticate the communication attributed to the Leader? provenance
- What evidence establishes its addressees and binding effect, if any? action
Continuity and accountability Tracks loss of qualification, inability to serve and the authority exercised during transitions.
Tenure and continuity cannot safely be inferred from an old officeholder record or an unverified announcement.
Tenure review
Separates reports about capacity or qualification from institutional determinations.
Cessation determination
Article 111 addresses inability and loss of qualifications; record the determination and evidence relevant to any claimed termination. [Constitution](https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1979/72964)
- What event or determination is claimed to have ended the holder's tenure? definition
- Which competent institutional record supports that claim and its effective date? provenance
Interim Leadership
Assesses temporary exercise of Leadership duties separately from substantive accession.
Interim authority limits
Article 111 provides temporary arrangements; verify their activation, participants and act-specific constraints. [Constitution](https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1979/72964)
- What evidence establishes the trigger, membership and effective period of the interim arrangement? provenance
- Which additional approvals are required before this interim body may exercise the power under examination? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- This description uses recalled knowledge and does not identify or verify the current incumbent.
- Check authoritative constitutional text and amendment history before relying on exact qualifications, appointment procedures or temporary succession arrangements.
- Formal constitutional powers and actual political influence require separate treatment.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of Supreme Leader of Iran this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, adopted by referendum in 1979 and amended by referendum in 1989: Article 107 provides for selection of the Leader by the Assembly of Experts.
- Article 109 of Iran's Constitution specifies religious, ethical, political and administrative qualifications for leadership.
- Article 110 of Iran's Constitution enumerates the Leader's powers and duties, including general policy direction, command of the armed forces and specified appointments.
- Article 111 of Iran's Constitution addresses removal, vacancy and temporary arrangements for exercising leadership duties.
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of Supreme Leader of Iran this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Identifying the office responsible for determining general state policies within the constitutional framework.
- Tracing supreme military command and authority over senior military appointments.
- Explaining appointments to institutions including the judiciary, state broadcasting and the clerical membership of the Guardian Council.
- Analysing succession through the Assembly of Experts.
- Distinguishing constitutional authority from the informal influence of an individual incumbent.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of Supreme Leader of Iran this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Conflating the constitutional office with the biography, views or actions of a particular incumbent.
- Treating the president as possessing the Supreme Leader's constitutional authority.
- Assuming constitutional provisions fully describe how power operates in practice.
- Treating supreme leadership as equivalent to being a universally recognised Shiʿi religious authority.
- Applying provisions from the original 1979 constitutional framework without accounting for the 1989 amendments.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of Supreme Leader of Iran this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- This is an office specific to the Islamic Republic of Iran; similarly translated leadership titles elsewhere need not denote equivalent institutions.
- Shiʿi communities and scholars outside and inside Iran differ in their acceptance and interpretation of the political authority associated with guardianship of the jurist.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of Supreme Leader of Iran this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- President of Iran - The presidency is a separate elected executive office with constitutionally distinct powers.
- Assembly of Experts - This is the collective body constitutionally responsible for selecting the Leader and determining removal under the specified conditions.
- Guardian Council - This is a separate constitutional body involved in reviewing legislation and supervising elections, rather than the leadership office itself.
- Guardianship of the Islamic jurist - This is a doctrine of authority that underpins the office, rather than the office or its incumbent.
- Marjaʿ al-taqlid - A marjaʿ is a religious authority followed in matters of Shiʿi jurisprudence; that status is not identical to holding Iran's supreme leadership.
- Incumbent Supreme Leader - The incumbent is the individual occupying the office during a particular period; this description concerns the continuing institutional role.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of Supreme Leader of Iran this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Which authenticated Persian constitutional text and Assembly of Experts procedural rules should govern the completed model, and where do translations differ materially?
- Who holds or temporarily exercises Leadership authority at the intended observation date, and which dated primary records establish that status?
- How are qualification and continuing-capacity assessments documented in practice, and which parts of that evidence are publicly accessible?
- Which interpretive sources establish the boundaries between binding Leadership orders, religious opinions, general policy statements and informal influence?
- Which delegations and representative mandates remain effective, including during succession, and where can their amendment or revocation be verified?