Rethinking of Fair Trial in the Light of Balance Principle of Rights of Victim and Accused

According to the conventional definition, fair trial is a trial by a competent tribunal in accordance with procedural guarantees to protect the defendants’ constitutional and legal rights especially in order to respect his/her human dignity and presumption of innocence. Based on the argument providing that justice and equity require recognizing the victim’s and defendant’s rights in criminal proceeding, the present article seeks to reconsider the notion “fair trial” from a descriptive definition to a prescriptive one. In the former, respecting to human dignity of the defendant based on his/her presumption of innocence are considered as two essential basic elements and providing an impartial court or tribunal and procedural guarantees for defendant’s rights are regarded as super structural elements based upon. According to the latter, the article concludes introducing a descriptive definition to recognize both parties within the principle of balance between victim’s and defendant’s rights