Comparative Study of the Concept and Necessities of Public Criminal Trial in the Iranian Law and International Standards

The rule of public trial is one of the main manifestations and indexes of fair trial, and is considered as one of the most important enforcements of the rule of fair trial. The rule of public trial has a combined and referable- to- various -elements concept and each of the conceptual elements has its own necessities. Hence, with lack of every conceptual element and its necessities, public hearing will not refer to the concept. So, in this article after explaining conceptual elements and the necessities of the public criminal trial rule under the shadow of international criteria, Iranian Law position is studied in this relation and it is concluded that in spite of investigation of conceptual elements and some of the necessities of public trial rule in Iranian Law, ignoring other important necessities of the rule such as public inaccessibility of documents and deeds of the cases, difficulty in accessibility to the courts’ votes and also legal restrictions in the field of releasing proceedings and some other practical limitations, have confronted desired achievement of public trial with serious challenges in the Iranian legal system. In addition, to completing the text, the exceptions and limitations governing this principle are also discussed in this paper.