Recognizing the Concepts and Instances of Criminal Procedure Principles in the Encounter between Liberty-Oriented and Security-Oriented Discourses after the Islamic Revolution

Utilizing the criminal procedure principles requires the identification of conceptual and practical aspects of it so that justice can be ensured and the abuse of power by those in authority can be prevented. Criminal procedure principles, on par with other aspects of social life, have been affected by the reciprocity between liberty-oriented and security-oriented discourses. Hence, despite the importance of these principles and their prominence in criminal laws, the concept and instantiations of these principles remain ambiguous. Almost four decades have passed since the victory of the Islamic Revolution and in spite of the enactment of various laws, including the Criminal Procedure Code of 2013, a unified definition of these principles has not been provided. Various opinions and different judicial procedures in this area require a proper definition of the principles, along with the determination of their real instantiations. In this descriptive-analytical paper, a proper definition of procedure principles is presented, indicating that its classification into fundamental and non-fundamental categories is inaccurate and there should be one class of criminal procedure principles. Furthermore, considering the executive guarantees provided for the criminal procedure principles, and while enumerating their real instantiations, it is stated that the instances of these principles should be limited to cases that affect judicial proceedings, and not every provision can be considered as an instantiation of the aforementioned.