Page:The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (1910).djvu/469

Rh 19. Those elected to represent the Capital and the various provinces shall proceed to Ṭihrán as quickly as possible. Since those elected in the provinces must be elected in accordance with the Regulations, and since consequently some considerable time will necessarily elapse before they can present themselves, therefore the representatives of Ṭihrán shall be elected, and the Assembly constituted immediately, so that it may proceed to discharge its functions until the provincial representatives shall present themselves, nor shall the delay in the arrival of these latter cause the Assembly to be inactive.

20. The living expenses and annual allowance of the Members of the National Consultative Assembly depends on the determination and sanction of the Assembly itself.

21. The period for which the National Representatives are appointed shall be two years, after which period fresh elections shall take place throughout the whole of Persia.

22. Complaints regarding the Assembly and its Members respecting the carrying out of the Elections, etc., must, in so far as they refer to the Assembly, be submitted in writing to the President of the Assembly, so that the subject of complaint may be investigated in the National Consultative Assembly and judgement thereon delivered.

23. No Member of the Assembly can be arrested or detained on any pretext without the permission of the Assembly, unless he shall publicly commit some crime or misdemeanour.

All written or spoken statements of Members of the Assembly on the affairs of the Government and the Nation shall be free, except in cases where such writings or statements of any Member shall be contrary to the public good, and, according to the enactments of the Most Luminous Law [of Islám] shall deserve punishment. In such cases, by permission of the Assembly, persons of this description shall be brought before the Court of Cassation.

24. Government officials and employés of government offices who are elected in a representative capacity as members of the Assembly shall quit their previous service, and while employed in this capacity shall have no right to intervene or concern themselves in their former office or in any other [similar] service, otherwise their representative function and membership shall be null and void.