Studying the Position and Role of Good Faith Principle In Criminal Law

Good faith, as a general legal principle, enjoys a privileged and special position in all branches of law. This basic principle is explicitly or implicitly mentioned in many countries’ statutes today. Of course, in criminal law, unlike other areas of law, especially private law, good faith is a less recognized concept and in practice neglected by many writers and researchers. In the literature of Iranian criminal law and in comparison with Western and Arab countries, the principle of good faith is not properly explained. Although the legislature has implicitly noted goodwill in some areas, including legal excuses, mitigating circumstances, and justifiable causes of committed act, he does not explicitly refer to this concept; In addition, the criteria for identifying good faith and the criteria for recognizing it have not been clarified. Only according to the legal doctrine, some judicial officials pay attention to the perpetrator’s good faith while writing the verdict and in the position of justifying the reason for modifying or changing the title of the accusation and also changing the type and amount of criminal response. In the general theory of crime, good faith finds meaning around the perpetrator's intent and reveals its effect specifically in relation to criminal guilt; in such a way that by proving the absence of malice, the person’s good faith in status of execution or exercise of the right is defended. The research method in this article is descriptive-analytical and at the same time comparative and library tools have been used to collect subjects.