The Position of Prosecutor in Modern Criminal Policy and Fair Trial Requirements

Fair trial is a process based on accused person's entitlement to all rights of defence and equal possibilities and conditions with his party to procure defence, the breach of whose provisions would cause deprivation of trial from the quality of justice and observing its criteria would fulfill the promise of a fair trial. The public prosecutor plays a key role in laying the foundations of criminal cases and non-observance of fair trial requirements in different stages of criminal process, especially the preliminary investigation stage, can lead the proceedings to adopting unfair decisions. Hence, the primitive position of public prosecutor's office has changed since two hundred years ago, and great changes in modern criminal policy have taken place. However, legislators have neglected this development and, through granting authority to public prosecutor in various stages of criminal process, breached the requirements of fair trial including the principle of neutrality, equality of arms, judicial independence, and separation of various sections of proceeding. In the proposed code of criminal procedure, there is no remarkable progress in this field. Observation of fair trial requirements and defence rights of the accused requires many reforms to be accomplished in criminal procedure of our country. In this paper, these reforms will be discussed.