Faṣlnāmah-i Pizhūhish-i Huqūq-i Kiyfarī (Feb 2015)
Rethinking of Fair Trial in the Light of Balance Principle of Rights of Victim and Accused
Abstract
According to the conventional definition, fair trial is a trial by acompetent tribunal in accordance with procedural guarantees to protect thedefendants’ constitutional and legal rights especially in order to respecthis/her human dignity and presumption of innocence. Based on the argumentproviding that justice and equity require recognizing the victim’s anddefendant’s rights in criminal proceeding, the present article seeks toreconsider the notion “fair trial” from a descriptive definition to aprescriptive one. In the former, respecting to human dignity of the defendantbased on his/her presumption of innocence are considered as two essentialbasic elements and providing an impartial court or tribunal and proceduralguarantees for defendant’s rights are regarded as super structural elementsbased upon. According to the latter, the article concludes introducing adescriptive definition to recognize both parties within the principle ofbalance between victim’s and defendant’s rights.
