Comparative Assessment of the Accused’s Right to Translation under ‎the Iran’s Legal System and International Law

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Law Department, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, ‎Iran

10.22059/jcl.2025.383322.634685

Abstract

The right to interpretation for accused persons who do not speak or understand the language of criminal proceedings or for persons with hearing and speech deficiencies is guaranteed both in the Iranian legal system and in the ICCPR and the statute of international criminal tribunals. The main question is whether criminal defendants have the right to have documents translated under Iran's legal system and international law documents in the light of Iran's legal system and international law? How is the above right guaranteed in both system, and through what mechanism? What are the challenges and consequences of ensuring this right in the realizing of the fundamental guarantees of a fair trial?  By examining the laws and jurisprudence of both legal systems, the author argues that domestic and international courts have not followed the same procedure regarding the right to translation and have taken completely different approaches due to distinct executive and judicial challenges in each system. International courts have pointed to various parts of the right to a fair trial as the origin of the right to translation. This issue has caused a promising structure to be provided in international legal system for the realization of the language rights of the accused, the implementation of justice and his effective participation in criminal proceedings, due to the necessary experience in dealing with multilingual trials, contrary to Iran’s legal system.

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Comparative Law Review

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 22 June 2025

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