Criminal Law
Payam Forouzandeh; Farid Mohseni
Abstract
After the completion of the preliminary investigation, if the investigator deems that the accused is in charge of that crime, he orders a summons to the trial against him. If the prosecutor agrees with that, he issues an indictment against the accused in order to send the case to court. Article 279 of ...
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After the completion of the preliminary investigation, if the investigator deems that the accused is in charge of that crime, he orders a summons to the trial against him. If the prosecutor agrees with that, he issues an indictment against the accused in order to send the case to court. Article 279 of the Code of Criminal Procedure sets out the items that should be inserted in the indictment. Clause "c" of this article states the accused criminal record as one of the items of indictment. However, the judge of the court will need the accused criminal record when he finds him guilty and wants to determine the appropriate punishment for him. While the accused may be acquitted in court and there is no need to determine a punishment for him at all. In this article, with a descriptive method, while reviewing the possible foundations of the mentioned legislative sentence, it will be explained that because there is no need to inform the judge about the accused criminal record before proving his guilt, inserting that in the indictment and consequently informing the judge from that is contrary to the principle of prohibition of espionage and may violate his privacy. In addition, the judge's knowledge of the accused criminal record before he or she is found guilty also damages the fair trial process and creates a negative prejudice in the mind of the judge, which can violate the presumption of innocence and the judge’s mental impartiality. At the end, we will provide some suggestions for fixing these problems.
