Code of Criminal Procedure
Morteza Rasteh; Nasrin Mehra; Amir Ghofrankhah
Abstract
Protection of witnesses and victims is one of the most important issues related to criminal proceedings, which has been emphasized in global and regional documents and has come to the fore through human rights judicial authorities. Lack of proper support for the witness or the victim may impair the correct ...
Read More
Protection of witnesses and victims is one of the most important issues related to criminal proceedings, which has been emphasized in global and regional documents and has come to the fore through human rights judicial authorities. Lack of proper support for the witness or the victim may impair the correct execution of justice; Because the courts will have no choice but to close the case or acquit the accused if the necessary documents are not collected. In the meantime, the judicial authorities are required to consider and protect the defense rights of the accused. Therefore, neither the interests of witnesses and victims nor the rights of the accused can be considered as an absolute principle; But in any situation there is room for mutual interests to be balanced. Therefore, creating this balance as well as adopting correct and path-breaking measures in this regard is one of the challenging issues in criminal proceedings that must be taken into consideration by the criminal justice system. One of the most important measures that may be taken to create this balance and according to the interests of justice is to limit the publicity of all or part of the proceedings. However, due to the fact that publicity of the hearing has been emphasized in human rights documents as a basic principle and one of the defense rights of the accused, therefore, only if a person appears as a witness in a public court session or is a victim of a crime, is, it cannot be recognized as an acceptable justification for the necessity of implementing protective measures; Rather, standing as a witness and testifying in a public session, or revealing the victim's identity through the presence of the public and the media, should be considered a serious threat to the witness and the victim, and the court by presenting acceptable evidence confirm the existence of such threats verify and prove, and as long as other protective measures can be applied, the court should not resort to holding hearings in private.Considering that nowadays the human rights documents and the rights recognized in the constitution of the governments are increasingly mixed together and have caused the formation of a single and comprehensive model related to the principles of procedure, identifying the criteria and the policy It is necessary to accept the international human rights system and model these standards in criminal laws and domestic judicial procedure. Therefore, the purpose of the issue, is to untangle the mechanisms of the international human rights system and conceivable measures to establish a balance between the protection of witnesses or victims and the accused's right to a public hearing, as well as to strengthen the components and criteria of its guarantee in national courts and in It is the light of the findings of the law of the present age.The current research, which was carried out with the descriptive-analytical method and the use of library and documentary sources, will seek to answer the question that, What is the most important programs and measures imaginable to support witnesses and victims in order to create the balance with the accused's right to a public hearing?Regarding the background of the research as well as the innovation aspect of this article, it should be mentioned that although due to the basic importance of protecting witnesses and victims, there have been researches about it, but so far the study of the contents of the cases submitted to the human rights judicial authorities in order to identify the procedures and actions of these authorities regarding the creation of a balance between the protection of witnesses or victims and the right of the accused to a public trial has not been carried out in the present; In particular, a special attitude to the interpretations of the Human Rights Committee as the only authority interpreting the rights contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the rulings issued by the European Court and the Inter-American Court as the executive arm of the European Convention on Human Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, which have so far been In relation to this topic, it has been less discussed, it is one of the special features and innovations of the present article.The findings of the research show that in the international human rights system, despite the fact that the protection of witnesses and victims has not been specified as one of the exceptions to the public hearing, it is clear from the provisions of the documents and procedures of the human rights authorities, It is possible that despite special circumstances, the protection of witnesses and victims may be included in the framework of "interests of justice" and considered as one of the legal examples of closed hearings. But in order to avoid the unreasonable and widespread application of this exception, such an action is only possible "to the extent of necessity and in compliance with the principle of Proportion".Based on this, it has been concluded that creating a balance between the interests of the witness and the victim (protection of dignity and security) and the rights of the accused (publicity of the hearings) requires that restrictive measures in this regard are precisely defined and absolutely necessary. be In addition, if a minimal restrictive measure is sufficient to establish a balance, only the same measure should be carried out, and restricting the public holding of hearings should be considered as the last measure in relation to the protection of witnesses and victims. On this basis, concealing the identity of witnesses; Taking necessary measures for the physical protection of witnesses and victims, such as the presence of a person as a bodyguard; Removing the accused from the court during the hearing of witness and victim statements; Making statements in a shielded manner that prevents physical identification of witnesses and victims, such as using curtains, walls, or any other type of cover; Listening to the statements of witnesses and victims through the use of communication technologies such as video conferencing and similar measures is one of the most common and practical measures and mechanisms related to the protection of witnesses and victims, which should be carried out by the judicial authority. Therefore, as long as these protective measures are applicable, the court should not ignore the accused's rights to a fair trial and resort to making the hearings closed.
