Member of the Universal House of Justice

The Universal House of Justice is elected every five years by the members of every National Spiritual Assembly in the world, meeting as delegates at an International Convention held at the Baha'i World Centre in Haifa. There are no candidates and no campaigning; delegates vote by secret ballot for the nine individuals they judge best qualified, and the nine with the most votes are elected.

The institution is established in Baha'u'llah's own writings and provided for in the will of Abdu'l-Baha, and it holds authority to legislate on matters not explicitly covered in Baha'i scripture. Baha'is regard that legislative authority as divinely guided, while distinguishing it sharply from revelation: the House of Justice may enact and later repeal its own legislation, which the word of a Manifestation of God could not be.

It was first elected in 1963, ending the six year interregnum that followed the death of Shoghi Effendi in 1957, during which the Hands of the Cause of God had jointly guided the Faith. It has been re-elected every five years since without interruption. Peter Smith's reference work on the Faith sets out both the constitutional basis and the electoral procedure in detail.

Membership carries none of the duties that would elsewhere define a religious leader. There is no pastoral office attached, no preaching function, no sacramental role and no personal spiritual authority. The Baha'i Faith has no clergy at all, and the House of Justice is a governing body rather than a college of priests.

No individual member holds authority apart from the body acting as a whole. Decisions are reached by consultation, a practice Baha'i teaching treats as a religious discipline in its own right, in which a view once offered belongs to the group rather than to the person who raised it and unity of decision is valued above the vindication of any participant. Members are not publicly identified as spokesmen and the institution speaks in its own name.

One feature is unusual enough that the Faith itself addresses it directly: membership is restricted to men. Every other elected Baha'i institution, local and national, is open to women and men equally, and the Faith teaches the equality of women and men as a central principle. Baha'i sources state that the restriction rests on the authority of Abdu'l-Baha and that its reason has not been disclosed, and that it will become clear in time. The atlas records the position and the explanation offered for it as the Faith gives them.