چکیده:
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was established following Security Council Resolution 1757 in 2007, with the aim of combating impunity and prosecuting and trying the perpetrators of the assassination of Rafic Hariri, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon. 'Trial in absentia without the presence of the accused' and, conversely, 'defense of the rights of absent defendants by the defense office' are two unique features of this court compared to other international and hybrid courts. The extent to which this type of trial in absentia complies with the standards of fair trial and international human rights constitutes a major and fundamental challenge for this court. Human rights institutions within the realm of the international legal system have only recommended trials in absentia without the presence of the accused in specific and exceptional cases. In this article, the reasons for recommending trials in absentia and the method of conducting this type of trial in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon are compared with international human rights standards, so that through this process, the extent of compliance with the rights of the absent defendant in the criminal justice process becomes clear.
خلاصه ماشینی:
At the international level, the statutes of criminal courts, except for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the Nuremberg Tribunal, have not accepted holding a trial without the presence of the accused or, in other words, trials in absentia, in cases where the accused has not appeared in any of the stages of proceedings, whether preliminary investigation or oral adjudication.
). In support of the above, it is noted that Article 61 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia provided the possibility for the Trial Chamber to formally hold a hearing in order to assess those pieces of evidence from the prosecutor that might be lost if the defendant were not present in court.
On this basis, some authors, in justifying the provision for trials in absentia without the presence of the defendant in the Statute of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, have claimed that Hezbollah, which possesses significant political and military power in Lebanon, would never be willing to hand over individuals against whom indictments are issued to the court 1 (Hassan, 2015: 403).
In its decision dated November 1, 2012, the Appeals Chamber interpreted the aforementioned articles in light of international documents and judicial practice and declared that international human rights law does not condition a trial in absentia upon formal and personal service [of documents, including the indictment] or the availability of evidence that proves the objective knowledge of the defendant (Prosecutor v.
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