Iran's Ahmadinejad Attacks Judiciary, Criticizes Rouhani

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad renewed on Monday his criticism of senior officials, attacking the policies of current President Hassan Rouhani over the recently unveiled state budget, while also demanding the restructuring of the judiciary.

He said before a student gathering that the budget had deprived some 40 million Iranians from government-approved aid.

During his failed presidential bid earlier this year, he had vowed to double this aid and defended on Monday his decision in 2014 to raise the funds by 120 percent.

He also accused the government and parliament of raising prices in the country and abandoning their commitment to provide financial aid to the people.

Rouhani had presented the new state budget two weeks ago. Parliament has six weeks to deliberate on it before putting it to a final vote.

Ahmadinejad also did not spare the judiciary from his criticism, demanding two weeks ago the resignation of head of the judicial Sadiq Larijani.

The former president said that the judiciary suffer from a disciplinary problem, as well as issues related to its structure.

He singled out the politicization of the judiciary and its exploitation to achieve political gains. He gave the example of making accusations and releasing them in the media before even a suspect is convicted of a crime.

Ahmadinejad criticized arbitrary arrests, the spread of rumors, detention without trial, intimidation of judges, violation of the judiciary’s impartiality, pressure exerted on lawyers and their prevention of representing defendants as some of several other problems plaguing Iran’s judiciary.

He then offered a number of proposals to restructure the judiciary.