Some laws have prohibited the selection or appointment of serving judges as arbitrators. This limits the scope of the will of the parties and may be caused by the rules governing the seat of arbitration or the law governing the contract. As an example, we can point to the prohibition of the appointment of serving judges as arbitrators by the parties, mentioned in Article 470 of the Civil Procedure Act. Of course, in international commercial arbitrations, due to the unique nature of the International Commercial Arbitration Act and according to Clause (1) of Article 36 of the aforementioned Act, the content of this Act is not applied in domestic arbitration regulations. However, some bylaws issued by the honorable Chief Justice of the Judiciary and special laws have imposed prohibitions regarding the freedom of judges to adjudicate arbitration cases. In many legal systems, not only the appointment of judges as arbitrators is not prohibited, but on the contractor their appointment in some countries, such as China, is mandatory.
Examining the arbitration laws in different countries and analyzing the relevant regulations, this article seeks, through a comparative study, to resolve any doubt pertaining to the permissibility of appointing judges as arbitrators in international commercial disputes. Also, by examining the possibility of their maintaining independence and neutrality, it shall be demonstrated that this prohibition lacks a substantial logical and legal basis. The findings of this study revealed that If there is any doubt regarding the independence or impartiality of an arbitrator chosen by the parties, in accordance with the rules governing arbitration, whether domestic or international, as well as the circumstances surrounding the case, the grounds for challenging the arbitrator will be provided. There are no explicit criteria for lack of independence or impartiality of an arbitrator, and in this regard, attention should be paid to the circumstances of each case and not rely on personal criteria. For example, simply the filing of a disciplinary complaint by one of the parties against the arbitrator cannot lead to his disqualification. Given that the court addresses various stages such as the appointment of an arbitrator, identification, enforcement, and annulment of the arbitral award and, in other words, the arbitration process at these sensitive stages is dependent on the court, the selection of a judge as an arbitrator may create grounds for his conflict of interest. In this regard, if the arbitrator directly deals with his own issued award, the matter falls under paragraph (v) of Article 91 of the Civil Procedure Law and the court's judgment must be rejected due to the existence of personal interest. In other cases where the arbitrator does not have a legal intervention in the case as a judge and directly, whether as a high-ranking or submitting official, so no conflict of interest is presumed, since judges are independent and mere professional unity cannot lead to a conflict of interest.