The Status of the Good Faith Principle in Criminal Proceedings

Good faith as an essential principle in substantive and procedural criminal law, can be discussed not only in the context of justifying the exercise of legal institutions including justifiable causes, legal excuses and mitigating factors for the crime perpetrator, but also in criminal proceedings, from the police stage to the investigation stage and even the execution of the sentence, have a special position. Though in the legal literature and in the criminal laws of many countries, explicitly or implicitly, the principle of good faith and its effect on the decision of the judicial authority and the scope of the criminal responsibility of the perpetrator, providing the basis for the use of the institutions of mutual aid, granting the right of defense to the accused in justifying the committed behavior and removing the charge, balancing the view of the official actors of the criminal justice system, etc. has been mentioned, but in the literature of Iran’s criminal law and criminal procedure, this principle has not been paid attention to in a proper and specific way. Although some judicial activists pay attention to good faith as a justification for adjusting or changing charges and changing the amount of punishments based on legal doctrine, but due to the lack of identification of the legal position of the aforementioned principle and its disregarded place during the criminal proceedings, the effective role of it, is not taken into account. In this research, which was carried out in a descriptive-analytical and at the same time comparative method by using library tools and analyzing the content of some opinions, the position of the good faith principle during the criminal proceedings process was explained and the positive consequences of legal and judicial efforts were explained. It has been mentioned, among other things, narrowing the scope of the population of suspects and accused persons, reducing the rate of court cases, reducing the number of convicts and prisoners, as well as consolidating the position of fair trial.