Problem-solving courts Principles in the light of comparative studies

After Punitive, Rehabilitative and Restorative models in the criminal justice system, recently a “worldwide trend” has been established in the judicial system of common law towards the use of more optimal and comprehensive methods, which has been respectively called “the Comprehensive Law Movement” in the USA and “Non-adversarial Justice” in the Australia. Accordingly, “Problem-Solving” or “Collaborative Justice” courts with reparative-therapeutic approach was established to address the underlying legal problems of defendant/offender. With a comprehensive look at the offender, victim and community, simultaneously use of therapeutic and community-based methods and mentioned triple models and without withdrawal traditional sanctions, these courts are trying to addressing defendants’ social, psychological, medical, and economic underlying problems. Meanwhile they seek to achieve the main purpose of the criminal justice system –crime prevention and rehabilitation of offenders- through minimizing the damages caused by laws, legal rules, legal procedures, legal roles and judicial practices. To increase the effectiveness of decisions, orders and verdicts, some criminal justice systems like Iran while keep traditional structures of present criminal courts and without using the specialized problem-solving courts has transferred some of the problem-solving principles directly to their laws or indirectly to their judicial practicies. This paper By using content analysis, analytical and descriptive method and library resources is trying to extract common principles of problem-solving courts and analyze the legal potentials of problem-solving in Iranian judicial system through a comparative study with Common Law System.