Differential Investigation of Economic rimes in Iranian and French Law

Abstract

Differentiating the prosecution and investigation of economic crimes with the aim of the criminal justice system efficiency and effective combat against the perpetrators of these crimes is a contemporary emerging approach, which has been gradually completed in the French legal system. The specialization of criminal justice has led the French legislature to specialize certain jurisdictions and judicial actors. "Contractualization" of criminal prosecution and development of public prosecutor’s authority for implementation of penal transaction in order to gain the public interest is another strategy of French legislator. In contrast, the Iranian legislator, despite some efforts to identify economic crimes and their effects on the Islamic Penal Code (of 2013) and to shift the burden of proof regarding money laundering, in the field of due penal process, does not have a coherent and systematic position on differentiation. In addition, the regulations in this area are fragmented and inefficient. Sometimes in practice, the process is led to differentiation by judicial instructions, which is against the principle of legality of the criminal process.

Keywords

• economic crime
• criminal procedure
• prosecution
• differentiation
• specialization