Introduction
Constitutional amendment is a mechanism for repairing imperfections in a foundational text, adapting it to social and political change, and enabling pacifying change without revolution or adoption of an entirely new constitution. Yet a constitution must also resist transient political pressures if it is to preserve supremacy, stability, and authority. The central problem is therefore not a binary choice between flexibility and rigidity, but the design of a balanced degree of amendment difficulty that protects constitutional continuity while preventing amendment stasis and obsolescence. This question is especially significant in Iran, where the Constitution of the Islamic Republic has been formally amended only once, in 1989, and where “constitutional amendment difficulty” has received little independent treatment in Persian legal scholarship. This study aims to clarify the concept, identify its codified and nontextual factors, and evaluate the Iranian constitutional order accordingly. It asks what amendment difficulty means, which factors shape it, and how Iran’s rules and practices should be assessed. The study hypothesizes that amendment difficulty in Iran is high because the formal amendment rules of Article 177 interact with a limited amendment history and a political culture that treats constitutional revision as exceptional.
Methods
The study employs a descriptive-analytical method and an observation-oriented approach. It first reconstructs amendment difficulty and its relationship with constitutional flexibility and rigidity through constitutional-law scholarship and theories of the design of amendment rules. It then classifies the determinants of difficulty into written and non-contextual sources. The written dimension includes procedural stages, institutional competences, amendment thresholds, referendums, and temporal limitations and unamendability, with particular attention to Article 177 of the Iranian Constitution. The unwritten dimension covers temporal variability, amendment experience, political structure, party competition, norms of constitutional change, constitutional veneration, amendment cultures, and informal change. Comparative examples from the United States, India, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Colombia, and selected African and Caribbean jurisdictions demonstrate that difficulty is relative and context-dependent. Finally, the four stages established by Article 177—initiation, deliberation and approval, confirmation, and referendum—are evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively. The inquiry combines doctrinal reading of constitutional provisions with critical comparison and distinguishes normative amendment design from its design and operation. The consequences of high difficulty are also examined through the interpretive practice of the Guardian Council, the General Policies concerning Article 44, and constitutional provisions identified as requiring formal reform.
Results and Discussions
Amendment difficulty denotes the degree of procedural and practical hardship faced by reformers seeking formal constitutional change; it cannot be inferred solely from codified amendment rules. Flexibility and rigidity lie on a continuum, and measuring difficulty merely by counting amendments or scoring formal thresholds is inadequate. The scope of each change, nature of party competition, historical circumstances, political conventions, and the amendment culture of the constitution affect how identical rules operate. Amendment difficulty is therefore contextual, temporally variable, and produced by interacting causes. Written causes include multiple procedural stages, concentration of the initiation power, supermajority requirements, compulsory referendums, and temporal or substantive restrictions. Unwritten causes include the demands of a historical period, institutional composition, pluralism, previous success or failure in reform, and public attitudes toward constitutional change. The article distinguishes an “amendment culture as acceleration,” which turns amendment into a rapid instrument of political objectives; an “amendment culture as redirection,” which transfers change from the formal route to interpretation, convention, or substitute practices; and an “amendment culture as incapacitation,” which deprives formal amendment rules of practical authority. High difficulty has ambivalent consequences. It may preserve institutional stability, protect fundamental rights, and prevent opportunistic manipulation. Beyond a reasonable level, however, it makes amendment rules ineffective, leaves provisions obsolete, reduces responsiveness to social transformation, restricts political dialogue, and encourages opaque informal amendment. Excessive flexibility creates the opposite risk by reducing the constitution to a statute and enabling partisan revision. No universally optimal degree of rigidity therefore exists; amendment design must reflect constitutional purposes and the importance of the provision concerned. Article 177 establishes four cumulative stages in Iran: initiation by the Leader after consultation with the Expediency Council; deliberation and approval by the Constitutional Revision Council; confirmation by the Leader; and final approval by an absolute majority of referendum participants. Their multiplicity creates substantial structural difficulty. Expediency controls initiation and confirmation, making difficulty contingent on political judgment, while the Constitution specifies no voting threshold for the Revision Council. Compulsory referendum for every amendment, without distinguishing transformative changes from minor changes, imposes the same demanding route on unequal subjects. The formal arrangement thus combines severe rigidity with ambiguity or unjustified flexibility. Unwritten factors intensify this burden. The sole amendment experience of 1989 covered numerous structural matters and entrenched an understanding of amendment as an exceptional, comprehensive event rather than a mechanism for a needed fix. The result is an environment approaching constructive unamendability. The Guardian Council’s interpretation of Article 113, its 2021 resolution prescribing qualifications for presidential candidates, and the practical transformation of Article 44 through general policies are presented as instances approaching informal constitutional alteration. These developments resemble a redirection culture, as change occurs outside the procedure designed for it. Interpretation may resolve ambiguity, but it cannot provide the procedural legitimacy, public participation, and clarity of formal amendment and may create rules beyond the text. It also identifies matters requiring formal reform, including local councils, legislative delegation, the Guardian Council’s rule-making position, and state broadcasting. Written obstacles, historical experience, and interpretive substitution therefore combine to produce an unreasonable degree of constructive unamendability.
Conclusion
The study concludes that amendment difficulty in Iran has moved beyond a defensible equilibrium. Formal obstacles and historical-cultural factors reinforce one another, obstruct necessary reform, and redirect constitutional change toward less transparent practices. The appropriate response is not to abolish rigidity or simplify all amendments uniformly, but to redesign Article 177 as a multi-track, subject-sensitive procedure. Fundamental provisions concerning constitutional identity and basic rights should retain demanding protections, while minor and non-fundamental changes should follow a clearer, less burdensome route. Precisely defined initiators, amendment thresholds, and procedures for each category would preserve stability while restoring necessary change to a lawful, transparent, and participatory process.