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A glance at the minutes of the Commission's meeting will suffice to reveal that in the course of the lengthy discussions conducted by the members of the Commission the following important facts have been stressed and recognized. The British accredited representative, present at the sessions of the Commission, has declared that "it was a fact that the Mandatory Power had recognized that the Baha'is had suffered an injustice and, ever since the award made by the High Court, the High Commissioner had been considering what means could be found to remove, either by an executive act or otherwise, the unjust effects of that decision." Moreover, it has been acknowledged by the accredited representative that the Baha'is had been in bonafide occupancy of the property, that they had expended on it sums that exceeded the value of the site itself, and were thus, in accordance with the provision in the still operative Turkish Law, entitled to purchase the site. Allusion has also been made in the course of the deliberations of the members of the Commission to the fact that the action of the Shi'ah community with respect to Baha'u'llah's sacred house constituted a breach of the Constitution and the Organic Law of Iraq which, according to the testimony of the British accredited representative, expressly provided for the unfettered freedom of conscience. A question from one of the members had even elicited from the representative of the British Government the reply assuring the Commission that the Mandatory Power actually possessed means of exercising pressure on the authorities in order, if necessary, to insure that so fundamental an article in the Constitution would be respected. Furthermore, the opinion has been strongly expressed that the matter had assumed an "importance which exceeded that of the individual case of the Baha'is," inasmuch as "the judgment of the High Court was suspected of having been inspired by political prejudice," with the consequent impression on the Commission that "from a moral point of view, conditions in Iraq were not improving; that religious passions still ran high and that peace had not yet been brought about between the various religious communities." It has even been proposed to supplement the report submitted to the Council with the observation that, in the opinion of the Commission, "a country in which the Sovereign and the highest law courts are capable of so flagrant a denial of justice would probably not be considered to be eligible to become a Member of the League of Nations." The minutes of the Commission's meeting further indicate that the contents of the letter addressed by the Prime Minister of Iraq to the British representative in Baghdad and which accompanied the text of the petition of the Baha'is do not in the opinion of the Commission "meet any of the allegations of the petitioners" and are confined to a mere assertion that the judgment of the Court of Appeal was pronounced in accordance with the laws of the land. As to the memorandum submitted by the Mandatory Power in connection with the Baha'i petition, and to which the minutes briefly refer, it is expressly stated that His Britannic Majesty's Government considers the ejectment of the Baha'is while the case was still undecided to have been an illegal action, that the reasons adduced to justify such action were hardly admissible, and that the final verdict of the Court of Appeal is unsustainable, contrary to the law, and tainted by political considerations. The minutes further declare that although any petition presented to the Commission appealing from a decision given by a Court of Law is to be considered as not being in order, yet as the petition submitted by the Baha'is reveals such a state of partiality, servility and sectarianism it has been found desirable to depart from the general rule and to regard the petition in question as receivable by the Commission. And among the concluding observations in the minutes of the Commission's meeting regarding the Baha'i petition is this significant passage: "The revelations made in connection with this petition show the present position in Iraq in an unfavorable light. In a country where the conduct of the highest authorities has led the Mandatory Power to pass such severe criticisms, where the Supreme Court of Justice is under legitimate suspicion, and where religious fanaticism pursues minorities and controls power, a state of affairs prevails which is not calculated to insure the development and well-being of the inhabitants. The petitioners have suffered a serious denial of justice the direct responsibility for which rests on the authorities of Iraq. The fact that this denial of justice could not be prevented or immediately made good was due to the weakening of the Mandatory Power's control in Iraq. The Mandatory attempted, but in vain, to redress the injury done to the petitioners by using the means of influence at its disposal under the regime set up by the 1922 Treaty vis-a-vis King Feisal and the Iraq Government. These efforts would not appear to correspond fully to the engagements resulting from the British Government's declaration, which was approved by the Council on September 27, 1924, and renewed by the British Government in 1926, whereby the Treaty of Alliance between the British Government and Iraq 'was to insure the complete observance and execution in Iraq of the principles which the acceptance of the mandate was intended to secure.'"
(176:1)
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