The Universal House of Justice

Most religious governing bodies are founded by their communities after the founder has died. This one was described in advance. Baha'u'llah names the House of Justice in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, sets out its standing and gives it authority over matters his own revelation has not addressed; Abdu'l-Baha, in his Will and Testament, describes its election and calls it the source to which all must turn. The institution therefore exists in the texts for something over a century before anybody sat on it.

The interval was long. Shoghi Effendi, who had directed the Baha'i world as Guardian since 1921, died in 1957 without having appointed a successor, and the Hands of the Cause of God acted as Custodians for the six years that followed. The first Universal House of Justice was elected in 1963, at the close of a ten year plan and at the centenary of Baha'u'llah's declaration, by the members of the national assemblies then existing.

Its seat is on the northern slope of Mount Carmel in Haifa, in a colonnaded building completed in 1983 that stands within the terraced gardens of the Baha'i World Centre. The site is not incidental: it is above the shrine of the Bab, and the arc of administrative buildings around it was laid out by Shoghi Effendi decades before most of them were built.

The election is unusual enough to be worth setting out. Every five years the members of the National Spiritual Assemblies of the world meet as an International Convention and elect nine people by secret ballot. There are no nominations, no candidates, no campaigning and no declared willingness to serve. Electors are told to vote for those they believe best qualified, and any adult male Baha'i in the world is eligible. Membership is restricted to men, which is one of the very few distinctions of that kind in Baha'i administration; the Baha'i writings state the restriction without explaining it and say that the reason will become clear, and the community discusses it on that footing.

Its legislative scope is defined by what scripture has already settled. Where a matter is expressly laid down in the revealed texts, the House does not legislate; where it is not, the House may enact, repeal and re-enact as conditions change, and Baha'is regard it as divinely guided within that sphere. It also administers the Baha'i funds, oversees the World Centre, appoints the Continental Boards of Counsellors and the International Teaching Centre, and issues the plans, currently in multi-year cycles, that direct community activity worldwide. Its annual message to the Baha'is of the world at Ridvan is the closest thing the faith has to a state of the community address.