Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani who was addressing a meeting of Judiciary high-ranking officials on Monday, touched upon Press Expo underway in Tehran, emphasizing the ‘unique and unparalleled’ role of the media in communicating transparent news and promoting the level of public ethics and understanding; “in many occasions we have sought help of the media; however, the media, to attend to its true responsibility of fighting and exposing corruption, needs support of the Judiciary as well; our general recommendations to judges in hearing media cases is that they should consider the place of the media as playing critical role of sources of information,” Ayatollah Amoli Larijani told the meeting.
He criticized what he called ‘disturbing the public opinion’ by some of the media, and accordingly “the Judiciary has a mission to prevent crime in line with its inherent duty to protect the media; this is quite unacceptable that the media abandon their role of making the public informed and promoting the public literacy, function as enemies’ mercenaries by receiving financial resources against national security,” he emphasized.
Ayatollah Amoli Larijani then came to ‘attacks mounted on the Judiciary in the brink of the Parliament elections,’ emphasizing that the Judiciary’s guide was compliance with the Constitution and considering the expediencies of the system according to the very text of the Constitution; “such attacks such as human rights issues raised will by no means be effective on our conduct; we invite the press and government officials to help the Judiciary as the pillar of the system; the larger part of the security enjoyed currently in the country are thank to Judiciary’s strong position along with other branches of the government,” he demanded.
“I strictly have eschewed from any remarks which would undermine the spirit of brotherhood and which sow discord among the system components; however, I would only touch what Mr. President has said during his visit to the Press Expo which I deem as dubious along with his accurate advice that criticism of the bodies of government was permitted and that the doors were open for any criticism,” Amoli Larijani said. “One of Mr. President’s remarks indirectly related to the Judiciary and implied that the Judiciary has been corrupt; his second remark that “daily newspapers could provide clues as to whom would be arrested the day after” is inaccurate, against the reality and undermining the place and professional conduct of the Judiciary which only divide the government branches through false stories,” emphasized the head of the Judiciary.
“Such remarks are not expected by the head of one of the government branches; the abuse of information by any newspaper could not be related to the Judiciary,” he objected.
SH/2961798