Assembly of Experts
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The Assembly of Experts of Iran (مجلس خبرگان in Persian), is a congress-like body for selecting the Supreme Leader and supervising his activities. It is called so, because all members are required to be experts in Fiqh, to be able to judge activities of Supreme Leader and make sure it does not violate the Islamic rules.
The assembly gathers every six months, and the members are elected by public vote for eight-year terms. The candidates are subject to approval of Guardian Council. Currently, the average age of the member is over 60 years, which results in many mid-term elections.
The meetings and the meeting notes of the assembly are confidential.
It is currently chaired by Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, deputied by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini. Current scribes are Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi and Ahmad Khatami.
Currently, most members of the assembly are conservatives, so the assembly is usually considered as a threat to the ongoing reform movement.