Judicial expert - a person with special knowledge and appointed in the manner prescribed by civil or arbitration procedural legislation (article 79 of the CCP, article 55 of the APC) for the production of forensic examination and giving an opinion. The law does not require that a forensic examination is necessarily performed by employees of state expert institutions. As an expert, any person who has the necessary knowledge to give a conclusion can be called. Forensic examinations are carried out by experts of state and non-state expert institutions, employees of non-expert institutions, private experts or other specialists.
Only a certified employee of a state forensic institution established by federal executive bodies or executive bodies of constituent entities of the Russian Federation (Article 11.12 of the Law on Forensic Expert Activities) can be a state forensic expert conducting forensic examination in the exercise of his official duties. In addition to state forensic experts, other persons who have special knowledge and are called to give an opinion may also conduct forensic examinations1.
The current legislation imposes serious requirements on the expert who carries out forensic expertise in the civil and arbitration proceedings. According to Art. 85 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the judicial expert is obliged to accept the court’s expert examination and conduct a full study of the submitted materials and documents; give a reasonable and objective conclusion on the questions put to him and send him to the court that appointed the examination; appear but to call the court for personal participation in the court hearing and answer questions related to the study and its conclusion. If the questions asked are beyond the expert’s specialized knowledge or the materials and documents are unsuitable or insufficient for conducting research and giving an opinion, the expert is obliged to send to the court that appointed the examination a written reasoned message about the impossibility of giving an opinion.
The same position of the legislator is reflected in Art. 16 of the Law on Forensic Expertise. But in addition to the conditions listed above, it is impossible for an expert to give an opinion here two more are present: the expert is refused to receive additional materials; the modern level of development of science does not allow to answer the questions posed.
It seems to us that the norms of the laws should be corrected in terms of the abolition of this list, since the coercion of persons with special knowledge to conduct an examination against their will contradicts Russian legislation and the principles of the rule of law state1. In fact, if an examination is assigned to a forensic expert - an employee of an expert institution, whose official duties include a forensic examination in accordance with the labor contract (contract) signed by him, then the legislative regulation of the obligation to appear and give an opinion. Indeed, in accordance with the labor legislation (Art. 57 TC) an employee of a forensic institution is subject to disciplinary responsibility. As for private experts, i.e. Those who carry out expert studies outside expert institutions, and now a large number of examinations in the civil and arbitration process are carried out by private experts, they are not obliged to make an examination and give an opinion. Forcing individuals with special knowledge to conduct an examination against their wishes is contrary to Art. 37 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, according to which forced labor is prohibited in the Russian Federation, as well as Art. 4 TC.
In part 4 of Art. 16 of the Law on Forensic Expertise, it is noted that an expert or a state forensic institution does not have the right to refuse to carry out the forensic examination assigned to them within the time specified by the court, citing the refusal of the party charged by the court to pay the costs of forensic examination. , to pay for the appointed examination before it. This rule is supported by an indication of the order of payment contained in Part 2 of Art. 85 of the Code of Civil Procedure, where it is noted that in case of refusal of the party to pre-pay the examination, the expert or forensic expert institution is obliged to conduct an expert examination appointed by the court and together with the application for reimbursement of the expenses incurred, send the expert’s opinion to the court with documents confirming the examination costs court issue of reimbursement of these costs by the relevant party If we are talking about a state expert institution, then this procedure is fully justified, since the costs of the examination are reimbursed from the state budget (including expenses for equipment, necessary materials, and salaries to state judicial experts). If we are talking about private experts or non-state expert institutions, then they may not have sufficient financial or material resources necessary for the production of forensic examination. Therefore, in our opinion, in the absence of prepayment, these subjects, having actually the opportunity to perform an examination, will refuse to produce it, citing the lack of materials or incompetence.
In Art. 85 GIC and art. 16 of the Law on Forensic Expertise indicates the inadmissibility of disclosure of information that became known to the expert in connection with the production of forensic examination. AIC does not contain such a norm.
The legislator establishes (Art. 79 of the Code of Civil Procedure, Art. 55 of the APC) the expert’s criminal liability for giving a deliberately false expert opinion provided for by Art. 307 of the Criminal Code. If a forensic examination is carried out in an expert institution, the legislator obliges the head of this institution to warn the expert about criminal responsibility for giving a deliberately false conclusion and to take from him about this subscription. If an examination is appointed to a specific expert, then the subject who has appointed the examination warns him about responsibility (part 2 of article 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure, part 4 of article 82 of the AIC, article 14 of the Law on Forensic Expert Activities). In civil proceedings, this rule is often violated both by the judges themselves and by the experts, which leads to negative consequences, up to the recognition of the expert's opinion as null and void.
So, for example, in the case of a road accident, the arbitration court appointed a judicial autotechnical and autotrading examination, the production of which was entrusted to the employees of the appraisal company Kone LLC. The judge, in her determination, did not indicate which of the company's employees would conduct the examination, and did not warn these individuals about criminal responsibility for giving a deliberately false conclusion, although Kone LLC was not a forensic expert institution. The selection of experts, as well as the receipt of a criminal liability warning subscription from them, was carried out by the company's general director V., referring to art. 14, 15 of the Law on Forensic Expertise, which defines the duties and rights of the head of the state expert institution. However, according to Art. 42 of the Law on Forensic Expertise, the above articles concern only the heads of state expert institutions and do not apply to others. Given that the Director General warned experts about criminal liability on the last day of the examination, the expert opinion was subsequently declared null and void.
The person acting in the role of an expert is obliged to inform the entity that appointed the expert examination of the circumstances precluding the possibility of his participation in this case, in the presence of such circumstances. According to the norms of procedural legislation, the judicial expert is subject to withdrawal if he is at least indirectly interested in the outcome of the case; is a relative of the parties, other persons involved in the case, or representatives; is or was in official or other dependence on the parties, other persons involved in the case, or representatives; there are other circumstances that cast doubt on his impartiality (Article 18 of the Code of Civil Procedure, Article 23 of the APC). Note that the previous participation of an expert in the case as a specialist is not the basis for his challenge.
The reason for challenging an expert in the arbitration process is to conduct an audit or verification, the materials of which became the reason for applying to the arbitration court or are used in the consideration of the case (part 1 of article 23 of the APC). That is, the legislator actually transferred the norm to the APC. For Art. 67 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR1, which for many years caused objections of the proceduralists and criminologists2 and, finally, was canceled in the current CPC. It is unlikely that such a mechanical transfer is progressive. At present, it can be considered proven and reasonable in practice that if a specialist participates in the collection of objects that may later become physical evidence, knowing that the production of expertise can be entrusted to him, he works much more responsible and more scrupulous. Therefore, it seems that this norm of the APC needs to be changed. The participation of the expert in the previous consideration of the case as an expert is not a reason for his withdrawal.
The forensic expert is not entitled to enter into personal contacts with participants in the process on matters related to the production of forensic examination, to independently collect materials for expert research. The expert contacts with the parties and their representatives only by participating in court sessions (part 3 of article 85 of the CPC, part 3 of article 55 of the APC).
If the expert collects materials for conducting a forensic examination by contacts with the persons involved in the case, the conclusion of such an examination should subsequently be excluded from the list of evidence. For example, the court considered a civil case for damages resulting from a fire in a country house. During the trial, an electrical examination was appointed to establish whether the electrical protection devices were in good condition. However, since during the inspection the electrical panel was not withdrawn and attached to the case file, the expert turned directly to the defendant, in whose room the electrical panel was installed. The defendant placed at the disposal of an expert electrical panel, which was investigated. The expert concluded that the equipment was in good condition, but the plaintiff filed a motion to declare it inadmissible and exclude the expert’s conclusion from the list of evidence. The court granted the petition.
Independent collection of materials for the examination is also an analysis by an expert of all case materials. The expert has the right to get acquainted with the case materials related to the subject matter of the examination. But these materials should be selected by the court (possibly with the participation of a specialist). In the case when the submitted materials are not enough, the expert has the right to request the missing ones. But the right of an expert to get acquainted with the materials of the case is limited to the subject of examination. The expert does not have the right to substitute subjects who have appointed the examination, and to analyze the case materials, collecting evidence, choosing what to investigate, for example, analyze testimony, otherwise there may be doubts about the objectivity and reasonableness of the opinion. Unfortunately, in practice this happens often.
In Art. 7 of the Law on Forensic Expertise, the legislator emphasizes that when conducting forensic examination, the expert is independent of the authority or person who appointed the forensic examination, the parties and other persons interested in the outcome of the case, i.e. in fact, the most important aspect of the independence of an expert is his procedural independence, which is guaranteed by the procedure for the appointment and production of forensic examination. The independence of the forensic expert is also ensured by the possibility of his challenge. Regardless of whether a forensic expert is a state expert, an employee of a non-state expert institution or a private expert, he gives an opinion on his own behalf and bears personal responsibility for the opinion given to him (Article 85 of the Code of Civil Procedure, Article 55 of the APC).
However, the independence of the expert’s judgments, the independence of the forensic examination is influenced by many factors and the procedural requirements alone are not enough. State forensic institutions are often subject to the same executive authorities as the investigative apparatus, inquiry bodies, such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Federal Security Service of Russia. This situation, of course, negatively affects the independence of both the forensic expert and the expert institution as a whole. In real life, there are many ways to exert pressure on an expert or the head of a forensic institution. The head of an expert institution may, for example, at the direction of one of the superiors, pass the examination to another expert if the conclusion made by the originally appointed expert does not suit someone. According to the law, the first expert can come forward with his special opinion, but being an employee of a paramilitary unit, where his fate essentially depends on the senior bosses, will he do it?
On the other hand, the real independence of non-state forensic institutions, private experts, despite the fact that many of them call themselves independent, is not always the case. In some cases, the expert conclusion may be directly dependent on the amount of the fee for the study. It seems that it is incorrect to call forensic examinations made in non-state expert institutions independent and private experts independent experts, since it follows that “dependent” expert examinations are performed in state expert institutions.
It seems to us that there is no way out in ensuring the full independence of the expert, which, like any abstraction, is impossible to achieve under real society conditions, although we should strive for it, of course, but in the possibility of conducting alternative forensic examinations, in the competition of state and non-state expert institutions.
The independence of the forensic expert is also determined by the equal level of professional training requirements of state and non-state experts. In Art. 13 of the Law on Forensic Expert Activities establishes the procedure for determining the level of professional training of experts and their certification for the right to independently conduct a forensic examination. To this end, expert qualification commissions have been established and are functioning in a number of federal executive bodies. And every five years the expert must confirm the level of their professionalism in the specified commissions. So far, these commissions produce certification and issue qualification certificates only to state judicial experts of this department.
Non-state expert institutions and non-expert organizations that carry out examinations and are interested in improving their status, more and more often themselves certify experts and attempt to confirm the reliability of the methods used, introduce new forms and methods for training experts, issue their own qualification certificates.
In order to improve the quality of expert research and at the same time implement the principle of equality of the parties in modern criminal and civil proceedings, the Russian Federal Center for Forensic Expertise at the Ministry of Justice of Russia (RFTCE) conducts a constant search for new procedures that streamline the organization and production of forensic examinations. The use of certified techniques of expert studies, uniform qualification requirements for experts of relevant expert specialties in state forensic institutions, regardless of their departmental affiliation, as well as in non-governmental institutions engaged in forensic expertise, will give a real opportunity to obtain the same objects during expert research comparable results, characterized by the required accuracy, reliability and reproducibility.
To achieve this goal, a voluntary certification system has been created at the RFTCE under the Ministry of Justice of Russia, under which it already implements:
- testing and issuing recommendations for the use in forensic practice of the methods, means and methodological recommendations for the production of forensic examinations;
- assessment and confirmation of the competence of judicial experts in various expert specialties.
An applicant for certification may be legal or natural persons. Для регистрации участников системы, а также выданных, приостановленных и отмененных сертификатов и соответственно организационно-методических документов системы создан единый реестр. Безусловно, система добровольной сертификации, функционирующая в РФЦСЭ, важна для практикующих негосударственных экспертов, которые тем самым могут легитимизировать свой статус как судебных экспертов. Но она имеет еще большее значение при первоначальной экспертной подготовке.
Помимо уже указанных выше прав, судебный эксперт согласно ст. 17 Закона о судебно-экспертной деятельности вправе:
- ходатайствовать перед руководителем соответствующего государственного судебно-экспертного учреждения о привлечении к производству судебной экспертизы других экспертов, если это необходимо для проведения исследований и дачи заключения;
- делать подлежащие занесению в протокол следственного действия или судебного заседания заявления по поводу неправильного истолкования участниками процесса его заключения или показаний;
- обжаловать в установленном законом порядке действия органа или лица, назначивших судебную экспертизу, если они нарушают права эксперта.
Важность экспертной инициативы в вопросе о привлечении к выполнению судебной экспертизы других экспертов подтверждается ч. 3 ст. 85 ГПК, но в АПК такая норма отсутствует. Однако следует подчеркнуть, что в тех случаях, когда эксперт не считает себя компетентным разрешать вопросы экспертизы, он должен не ходатайствовать о привлечении дополнительно других экспертов, но вообще отказаться от ее производства.
Поскольку суд, истец, ответчик, представители сторон и иные участники процесса могут неправильно истолковать заключение эксперта или его показания при допросе, законодатель в Законе о судебно-экспертной деятельности предоставляет судебному эксперту право делать заявления. Эта норма, как нам кажется, вполне логична, однако ни в одном из процессуальных кодексов РФ судебный эксперт не наделен таким правом. Конечно, свои возражения эксперт может изложить в процессе его допроса. Однако формально, коль скоро процессуальным законом эксперту не предоставлено право делать заявления, эти возражения заявлением не являются и могут быть оставлены без рассмотрения. К тому же инициатива в производстве допроса эксперта принадлежит суду. С другой стороны, эксперт не вправе изложить свои возражения по поводу неправильного истолкования его заключения или показаний при допросе в виде ходатайства, поскольку- согласно процессуальному законодательству, он может заявлять ходатайства только о предоставлении дополнительных материалов, необходимых для дачи заключения, либо привлечении к производству судебной экспертизы других экспертов. Обжаловать неправильное истолкование заключения эксперт также не может, поскольку его права как эксперта ограничены.
Рассмотрим далее иные права, предоставляемые эксперту процессуальным законодательством (ч. 3 ст. 85 ГПК, ч. 3 ст. 55 АПК). Во всех этих нормах, как уже упоминалось выше, содержится указание на право эксперта знакомиться с материалами дела, относящимися к предмету судебной экспертизы, и при определенных условиях отказаться от производства экспертизы. Помимо этого судебный эксперт имеет право:
- ходатайствовать о предоставлении ему дополнительных материалов, необходимых для дачи заключения;
- участвовать с разрешения суда в процессуальных действиях и задавать вопросы, относящиеся к предмету судебной экспертизы;
- давать заключение в пределах своей компетенции, в том числе по вопросам, хотя и не поставленным в постановлении (определении) о назначении судебной экспертизы, но имеющим отношение к предмету экспертного исследования;
- to complain about actions (inaction) and court decisions restricting his rights.
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