Privačios ekspertizės Lenkijos tardymo ir teismų praktikoje

Abstract

According to a continental model of criminal and civil procedure an expert-witness is summoned for the proceedings in Poland only by a legal organ (a court or an investigative organ - a prosecutor or the Police in criminal cases); the formal condition upon which the participation of an expert-witness is possible is passing by the legal organ conducting the proceedings a formal decision of calling an expert in a given case. The parties of the proceedings are not allowed to call officially their own expert-witnesses; they can put forward a motion to call an expert-witness by a legal organ and suggest However a phenomenon of increase of adversary trial system has been observed during recent years in Poland and one of its components is asking by the parties of the proceedings for help persons specialized in various fields, called "private experts". The codes of criminal and civil procedures do not mention such a possibility but, on the other hand, there are no provisions that would forbid the parties to play such active role. With the problem of issuing by the private experts their informal opinions many difficult procedural questions, discussed in the paper, are connected, such as: an influence of private opinions on a defense tactics in criminal cases or parties' actions in civil cases, sufficiency of examining material for a private expertise, competence and objectiveness of private experts, possible impact of a private opinion on the final resolution of the case