The election of the Universal House of Justice in 1963 established an institution with a distinctive place in Baha'i religious authority: unlike Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi before it, the Universal House of Justice does not claim the station of infallible interpreter of scripture in quite the same personal sense, but functions instead as an elected legislative and administrative body, authorized by Baha'u'llah's own writings to legislate on matters his revelation did not explicitly address, while remaining bound by the text of that revelation itself.
The body's nine members are elected every five years by delegates representing National Spiritual Assemblies worldwide, a system intended by Baha'u'llah's own administrative writings, further elaborated by Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi, to give the Baha'i Faith a form of collective, elected leadership rather than a hereditary or centrally appointed one, distinguishing its governance model from many other world religions.
Since 1963 the Universal House of Justice, seated in Haifa near the Shrine of the Bab, has functioned as the Baha'i Faith's supreme governing institution, and no further Guardian has been appointed since Shoghi Effendi's death, a position some minority groups within the wider Babi and Baha'i historical movement have contested, though it is not disputed within the mainstream Baha'i community recognized by the Universal House of Justice itself.