The Independence of Insurance and Tax Judicial Authorities in Iran

For years, one of the primary challenges and concerns for economic actors and businesses in Iran has been the unfair structure of the Tax Dispute Resolution Boards and the Social Security Claim Assessment Boards.

Where is the root of the problem?
Conflict of Interest!

(Note for foreign readers: In the Iranian administrative legal system, the Iranian National Tax Administration (INTA) and the Social Security Organization (SSO) are not only responsible for assessing and collecting taxes and mandatory workplace insurance premiums, but they also physically host and administratively manage the quasi-judicial boards that hear citizens' and businesses' appeals against those very assessments. Essentially, the state agency claiming the debt also acts as the judge in its own case).

This structure not only calls independence and impartiality into question but has also caused serious damage to investment security and the business environment.

This urgent necessity finally prompted the Iranian legislator to perform major structural surgery. On June 22, 2024, the "Seventh National Development Plan Law" (Iran's 5-year macroeconomic legislative framework) was approved by the Expediency Discernment Council. Clause "T" of Article 27 of this law contains a golden mandate:

"T - In implementing Clause (4) of the general policies of the Seventh Five-Year Plan regarding the boom in production and tax justice, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance is obliged, in cooperation with the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, to provide the legal provisions for the detachment of tax judicial processes from the National Tax Administration and insurance judicial processes from the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, and to establish independent tax and insurance judicial centers by the end of the first year of the Plan."

1. Following the passage of this law, the private sector intensified its demands for its precise implementation. (Images 1 to 7). The Government-Private Sector Dialogue Council and the Iran Chamber of Commerce, through multiple correspondences, proposed 8 prerequisites to achieve this independence.
Their requests were clear: 1) Independence and impartiality of the judges; 2) Removing the authority to appoint board members from the jurisdiction of SSO managers; 3) Observing transparency in proceedings; 4) Providing the right to a defense; 5) Allowing for retrials; 6) Establishing a disciplinary authority for the infractions of board members; 7) Physically relocating the hearing venues outside of SSO buildings; 8) Drafting proper procedural rules.

2. In response to these demands, the Social Security Organization (SSO), instead of creating genuine independence, adopted a reductionist approach!
The organization drafted a directive that, rather than legally detaching the judicial process, merely created an internal department called "Insurance Judicial Management" within the SSO itself. It reduced the mandated structural changes to simply digitizing legal notices through the "Sana" system (Note: "Sana" is Iran's national electronic judicial notification platform)!
Following this maneuver, the Legal Deputy of the President sent a letter (Image 10) obliging the SSO to at least publish this draft on the National Database of Laws to receive public feedback before final approval.

3. The private sector, realizing these were merely cosmetic changes, did not stay silent. In a blunt letter to the President's Legal Deputy, the Chamber of Commerce declared:

Creating a judicial unit inside the organization by no means represents the "detachment and independence" intended by the legislator.

Making the receipt of documents or electronic notifications independent are merely "procedural formalities" and do not solve the core problem: the authoritarian composition and the heavy-handed presence of the organization's own representatives on the judicial boards.

💡 The documents I have attached to this post demonstrate an all-out battle over the concept of justice and impartiality in Iran. The resistance of executive agencies to preserve their judicial power is completely evident, but the private sector has shown it will not settle for superficial, on-paper changes. Judicial independence must be structural, real, and tangible.

Written by Reza Bastani Namaghi