Effects and Consequences of Legal Formalism on Iran's Criminal System; Challenges and Solutions

Legal formalism takes an inflexible approach in the field of criminal offenses by giving importance to the unquestioning acceptance of the law in the field of crimes and determining the punishment for criminals. In contrast to this approach, another type of criminal law has been proposed, which defends the role of various factors in the occurrence of crimes, such as: individual characteristics, environmental and social factors, and also giving importance to the role of interpretation of laws, the authority of the judge. and issuing judgments based on the status of criminals entered the arena under the title of realism. Therefore, the realism approach can be considered as a critique against formalism. The findings show that in response to the inefficiencies of this approach in determining punishment in criminal matters, legal realism has been proposed. Realism is a method to overcome the shortcomings of the law, its inflexibility, replacing community-oriented methods instead of prison and retribution, paying attention to the judge's creativity in cases where the law is not a solution, and also a more accurate application of crime and punishment. In domestic criminal laws, alternative punishment, considering justice and benevolence in determining punishment and crimes, and also assigning a role to the judge's creativity are solutions for using realism in the field of the criminal system. The present research method is also descriptive and analytical and using documentary and library sources.