The Islamic Republic of Iran more than any other state in the Middle East pays meticulous attention to the concept of 'legality'. Due to the strong normative tradition of constitutionalism and the insistence on the unique republican character of the regime - all electoral manipulations notwithstanding, - the regime prides itself in its constitutional roots and the level of rights it de jure grants to its citizens. The Islamic Republic therefore exerts repression not so much through an elaborate apparatus of a surveillance bureaucracy, as most other authoritarian states of the Middle East do, but through the use of 'law'. Per certain clauses of the 1979 constitution, citizens de jure enjoy all political rights and civil liberties common to long-standing democracies. Iran also has a long-standing bar association (Kanoune Vokalaye Dadgostari), which in theory could create and preserve standards for an independent legal profession. The constitutionally-granted civil liberties are abrogated, however, by virtue of the fact that the unelected councils may interpret the constitution and limit such liberties with reference to their own interpretation of (non-positivized) Shii Jaafari law. The bar association in turn has frequently been neutralized through the interferences - always couched in applications of 'law' - by the judiciary, and was ultimately marginalized entirely in 2003 when the judiciary officially started to certify its own lawyers and judges. This paper examines the use of the judiciary on part of the executive (the Leader's office - Daftare Rahbari) during the past three presidencies: from Khatami, whose administration had declared as one of its principal goals the strengthening of the rule of law, to Ahmadinejad, for whom the republican character of the regime appears to be but an unnecessary ornament. The paper argues that through appointment policies, authoritarian interpretations of vaguely-defined competencies, the use of special courts, and the supplementation of constitutional provisions by a myriad of contradictory regulations, the executive has gradually succeeded in reversing the improvements in the rule of law reached during the Khatami administration and has de facto annexed the judicial complex as an extension of the Rahbar's office. The paper is based on interviews with lawyers and officials of the judiciary, a review of key appointments in the past years and developments in the realm of judicial reform (parliamentary reform proposals and de facto implementations), trial documentation, as well as reports by Iranian and international human rights organizations.