Responsibility of the forensic expert: review of current legislation

Abstract

The article is devoted to the review of the current legislation of Ukraine, which regulates the responsibility of judicial experts, some features of the innovations in terms of the disciplinary responsibility of judicial experts at the legislative level are disclosed. Based on the results of the analysis, the authors came to the conclusion about the imperfection of the changes made to the Law of Ukraine «On Forensic Expertise», which, first of all, are aimed at strengthening methods of influencing forensic experts. The above-mentioned legislative changes indicate a somewhat biased attitude of their authors towards forensic experts, as an important and integral component of the system of forensic expert activity and the judicial system as a whole. Unfortunately, the reality is that currently only legal experts at the legislative level can be brought to legal, in particular disciplinary, responsibility, while specialists in other fields do not bear any responsibility for the same type of violation. In view of the above, it is proposed to review the content of Article 14 of the Law of Ukraine «On Forensic Expertise» and to exclude certain types of disciplinary offences listed therein, which are grounds for bringing forensic experts to disciplinary responsibility.