Relationships between Litigation Costs and Principles of Fair Trial: A Comparative Study of Iranian and English Law

The right to a fair trial includes a set of principles and rules guaranteeing the rights of the litigants during the trial, and the "amount", "responsibility" and "time" of the payment of the proceeding costs have many effects on the realization of these principles. The comparative study of the regulations governing the cost of proceeding in the three aforementioned fields in the laws of Iran and England is effective in providing a suitable standard for determining the amount, responsibility and time of paying the proceeding costs based on the principles of fair trial. The current research is a descriptive-analytical one with a comparative look at various documentary sources and studies in Iranian and English law. The right to equal access to justice is the beginning of fair trial and the high cost of proceedings is one of the obstacles to the realization of this principle. The principle of equality requires setting costs at a "reasonable and conventional" level. Auxiliary mechanisms such as legal aid cannot guarantee the realization of a fair trial and even if it can compensate economic inequalities, it disrupts another indicator of the quality of the trial, i.e., time, and causes the trial to be delayed. The result of prolonging the proceedings is a decrease in the accuracy of the court and dissatisfaction of the parties to the trial. Mere failure in a lawsuit cannot justify imposing costs on one of the litigants. The responsibility for payment of proceeding costs should be done according to fair criteria. Therefore, the trial costs should be collected at the right time so that, while providing the possibility of determining the proceeding costs in accordance with the lawsuit and the realization of the trial, the person responsible for paying the fees should also be determined.