Document Type : Research Article
Authors
1 Professor, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Allameh Tabatabaie University, Tehran, Iran.
2 PhD student, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Allameh Tabatabaie University, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
The present article, adopting an analytical-comparative approach and with a brief reference to the Iranian criminal justice system, explores the capacities of Kleinfeld's Reconstructivism Theory in explaining the structural obstacles to realizing democratic criminal justice.
Within this theoretical framework, which conceptualizes justice as communication, the transition from the traditional paradigm of "criminal law as control" to an institutional architecture based on the three principles of participation, transparency, and institutional balance is considered as the fundamental strategy for rebuilding public trust and repairing normative ruptures.
The research findings indicate that these three principles stand in a dialectical relationship with one another, so that the absence or weakness of any of them disrupts the overall function of the criminal justice system. Ultimately, the conducted comparative analysis corroborates the proposition that legitimacy in the contemporary era is founded not on technical efficacy, but rather on the fairness of the processes involved in the production, execution, and supervision of penal power.
Keywords
- Democratic Criminal Law
- Reconstructivist Theory
- Public Participation
- Judicial Transparency
- Institutional Balance
Main Subjects
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