Interrogator independence and challenges of his lack of independence in the judicial system of Iran and France

Abstract

The presence of legal procedure in courts does not always guarantee its fairness and factors such as the affiliation of the investigation authority with some organizations and institutions, closed investigation and prolongation of procedure may compromise the achievement of a fair outcome. The interrogator in criminal procedures is charged with important and momentous judicial tasks and for this reason, he should enjoy higher job security as in French law, an interrogator is not considered among the officials of public prosecutor’s office and enjoys higher security. Code of Criminal Procedure of 2013 has established a positive view in connection with the interrogator’s powers but on the other hand still puts great emphasis on some of the orientations whose trial and error have been performed in developed countries like France. Among these cases are the challenges such as the lack of full independence of the interrogator, violating the principle of impartiality, failure to determine appropriate sanctions to violate some of the principles of a fair trial and so on which have created problems in criminal procedures and need expertise in this regard. In this paper which has been conducted based on a descriptive-analytical method, the existing challenges in relation to the interrogator independence and challenges of his lack of independence are investigated due to the necessity of examining the duties and powers of the interrogator.

Keywords: Criminal procedure, fair trial, interrogator independence, Iranian law, French law