Source: https://nsukiasmlondon.com/2017/07/30/use-and-problems-of-expert-witnesses-in-court-law-essay/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 02:37:48+00:00

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This essay aims to analyze whether the aspiration of adept objectiveness is realistic in our adversary system. In the following portion, we shall discourse the job of adversarial prejudice every bit good as the responsibilities of adept informants. In portion 3, the pertinence of tribunal appointed experts in Hong Kong will be examined with mention to the inquisitorial system. In portion 4, we will research the jobs associated with the little population of possible experts in Hong Kong, followed by the tribunal ‘s power in covering with adept dissensions in portion 5. Finally, a decision will be drawn in the last portion of this paper.
Another ground for deficiency of nonsubjective adept grounds is due to the job of “ adept shopping ” , which is a procedure of choosing sentiments from one expert after another, until the most favorable sentiment to the party ‘s instance is found.[ 10 ]Since the pick of experts prevarications with the parties, the adept grounds is selected on the footing that would function the best involvements of their client ‘s instances. Consequently the tribunal does non needfully obtain the most independent or nonsubjective adept grounds. The pattern of choosing the “ most favourable expert ” is so a deformation of the principle behind adept grounds every bit good as a disrepute to the disposal of justness.
Due to the concern about the failure of experts to supply an independent and nonsubjective sentiment, a developed codification of behavior has been set out in National Justice Compania Naviera SA v. Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd. ( The Ikarian Reefer )[ 11 ]to clear up the responsibilities of an adept informant. The most of import parts are the first two numbered paragraphs, which stated that: “ 1 ) Expert grounds presented to the Court should be the independent merchandise of the expert uninfluenced as to organize or content by the exigencies of judicial proceeding[ 12 ]; 2 ) An adept informant should supply independent aid to the Court by manner of nonsubjective indifferent sentiment in relation to affairs within his expertness[ 13 ]. ” The Ikarian Reefer guidelines remain a good jurisprudence in Hong Kong, and the relevant rules were set out in paragraph L1/58/7 of Hong Kong Civil Procedure 2009. The adept informant ‘s “ overruling responsibility ” to supply independent and indifferent aid to tribunal is besides reflected in Order 38, regulation 35A of the Rules of the High Court ( RHC ) every bit good as the Code of Conduct for Expert Witness in Appendix D of RHC. Further counsel is provided in Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Ltd. v. Commissioner of Rating and Valuation[ 14 ]that an expert besides needs to guarantee no skip of stuff facts that could deviate from his complete sentiment.
Although the adversary system may non hold provided an ideal environment for the adept informants to keep their independency and objectiveness from their clients, I believed that the announcement of codification of behavior would hold raised consciousness of the adept informants in run intoing the tribunal ‘s outlooks, so that they will be less easy manipulated by attorneies, which can be given to harness in the “ widespread ” job of expert prejudice in Hong Kong.
Apart from a codification of behavior for adept informants, some observers have recommended other ways to cut down the job of expert prejudice, and one of them is the assignment of tribunal experts with mention to the inquisitorial system. It is common for the tribunal to name experts in many Continental legal powers, such as Belgium, Germany and France. Unlike the manner to name experts under the adversarial system, the expert informants are selected and remunerated by an independent authorization, normally the tribunal instead than the parties, which may avoid the job of adversarial prejudice.[ 15 ]Take an illustration of the Gallic system of expertness, the justice would usually committee the adept informants from a list of official experts, and they will be questioned by the justice.[ 16 ]The major differentiation between the adversarial and inquisitorial system of justness is that the parties play a minimum function in turn uping grounds and they need non actively prosecute with the expert informant in tribunal, as the expert informant is infrequently cross-examined by the suspects. As the court-appointed expert has small interaction with the parties, they are more likely to give an aim and indifferent sentiment to the Court.
Second, it is hard to guarantee the cogency or prove the pertinence of the adept grounds in inquisitorial systems due to miss of cross-examination and engagement of more adept sentiment, which are cardinal characteristics of the adversarial system. In the absence of challenges to expert grounds, its quality and dependability is hence dubious as there is no manner to prove the rightness of the adept decision.[ 19 ]Furthermore, the exercising of tribunal ‘s power to name an expert is rare under Order 40 of RHC in Hong Kong. It is indicated in the instance of Nguyen Ho & A ; Others v. Director of Immigration[ 20 ]that the Court of Appeal has declined an invitation to name a tribunal expert.
Consequently, the inquisitorial court-appointed expert is hard to incorporate in our adversarial system, particularly the of import characteristic of cross-examination which encourages critical examination of the adept grounds is missing under the inquisitorial system.[ 21 ]It is besides of my position that the adversarial expertness may profit the fact-finder in another manner by supplying a scope of positions or readings that allows confirmation of the cogency and truth of the adept grounds in Court.
As Hong Kong is confronted with the job of parties obtaining “ hired gun ” experts,[ 22 ]the concern of expert prejudice may besides originate when the “ employer ” of the expert informant is the prosecution. This is peculiarly the instance for condemnable prosecutions, where the expert informants are normally and closely connected with the constabulary or prosecution governments. In fact, the little population of available experts in Hong Kong would render the trust on adept informants “ employed ” by the prosecution inevitable, for case, constabulary officers may be called by the prosecution as informants to give grounds in drug instances sing the mean dose of drug addictsaˆ¦etc. One may nonetheless argue that trusting on the prosecution ‘s ain officers as adept informants to supply sentiment grounds would prima facie dramatis personae a uncertainty on their independency and objectiveness in that instance. Therefore, it raises the job of whether it is possible to curtail the officers of the prosecution from giving sentiment grounds as an expert in his field to back up the prosecution ‘s instance.
In R v. Chung Chen Hsin[ 23 ]( Chung ) , a constabulary officer ballistic trajectories expert, who was perchance connected with the probe, was called by the prosecution as informant to attest for them that the unusual arm found in the suspect ‘s manus baggage was a “ piece ” . The tribunal has made some of import points sing the right of the prosecution authorization to name its ain officers as adept informants to offer sentiment grounds. It is held that there is no demand in a condemnable proceeding where the expert informant ought to be independent of the prosecution authorization, but a informant who is “ competent and decently qualified ” to supply his expertness would do.[ 24 ]Judge Stuart Moore besides challenged the judgement in R v. Kai Tai Construction Engineering Company Ltd.[ 25 ]by claiming that “ it was non a “ material abnormality ” for the prosecution to hold called a decently qualified expert from the same section responsible for that prosecution, ” and there must be “ powerful grounds ” to project a uncertainty on the expert called by the prosecution in order to warrant the refusal to let the prosecution ‘s ain officers as adept informants.[ 26 ]Furthermore, even the expert informant is so closely connected to the instance that he may be biased in favor of the prosecution, it is finally a affair remained for the jury to measure the weight to be attached to his testimony and the inquiry of admissibility is irrelevant.
The principle in Chung was reaffirmed in many recent instances, such as Tang Ping Choi & A ; Another v. Secretary for Transport[ 27 ], where the tribunal held that an expert ‘s grounds was non inadmissible simply due to the fact that he or she was an employee of one of the parties to the instance. With limited human resources in Hong Kong, the fact that many expert informants have been employed by the party naming them is about inevitable, particularly for the proficient affairs that require extremely specialised experts to offer their sentiment grounds.
Despite the possible deficiency of independency of the adept informants employed by the prosecution, it has been made clear by the Hong Kong tribunals that the adept grounds would non be excluded simply on that footing. Even though the adept informant may hold produced a colored sentiment due to his or her vested involvement in the result of the instance, it is merely relevant to the weight to be attached to that expert ‘s testimony instead than the admissibility of grounds.
With one of more adept informants giving sentiment grounds at tribunal, it is possible to hold a clang of sentiment between opposing experts. In fact, we may split the treatment into two parts: one is the function the justice if this state of affairs happens at the test ; while the other is the justice ‘s powers to restrict the extent of adept dissension before the test.
First of wholly, if there are conflicting expert ‘s sentiments during the test, the justice will necessitate to direct the jury right. It is held by the Court of Appeal in Plait[ 28 ]that the justice should non direct the jury in a manner that it is a instance of taking between their sentiment grounds. Rather, the jury should see if there is a sensible possibility that either the sentiment of the prosecution or defense mechanism expert, when taken in concurrence with all the other grounds, is right ; so the jury should continue on that footing.
As a consequence, it is believed that the way of pre-trial adept meeting and joint study will be more utile to contract the conflicting sentiment between experts instead than the assignment of a individual articulation expert.
With increasing technological edification of issues in tribunals, it is no uncertainty that the expert informant is playing a more important function in the judicial procedure. Unlike other informants, the expert informant has an overruling responsibility to the tribunal to supply nonsubjective and indifferent sentiment grounds. An absence of independency and objectiveness on the portion of the expert informant would be damaging to the tribunal, and accordingly lead to a devaluing function of the expert informant in the tribunal proceedings. It is opined that the debut of the codification of behavior every bit good as the new regulations under the Civil Justice Reform in Hong Kong have evolved new functions for the adept informant. By puting tribunal outlooks in regard of the adept grounds, the expert informant would endeavor to run into the high criterions and adhere to their responsibilities and duties listed in the regulations.
Despite the attempt of the expert informant, I believe the conjunct attempts by all watercourses of the judicial system are besides critical to reconstruct non merely the credibleness of the function of adept informant, but besides public ‘s assurance in the disposal of justness.
Charles Pugh & A ; Marcus Pilgerstorfer, ‘Expert Evidence: The Requirement of Independence ‘ ( 2008 ) Journal of Personal Injury Law 224.
Gary Edmond, ‘After Objectivity: Adept Evidence and Procedural Reform ‘ 25 Sydney Law Review 131.
Gary Edmond, ‘Judicial Representations of Scientific Evidence ‘ ( 2000 ) 63 Modern Law Review 216.
J.R Spencer, ‘Court Experts and Expert Witnesses: Have We a Lesson to Learn from the Gallic? ” ( 1992 ) 45 Current Legal Problems 213.
Peter Alldridge, ‘Forensic Science and Expert Evidence ‘ ( 1994 ) 21 Journal of Law and Society 136.
Samuel Gross, ‘Expert Evidence ‘ ( 1991 ) Wisconsin Law Review 1113.
Cliff Buddle, ‘Judge calls adept witness materialistic ‘ SCMP ( 22 March 2002 ) EDT 7.
Justice Sperling, ‘Expert Evidence: The Problem of Bias and Other Things ‘ ( 1999 ) : & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/supreme_court/ll_sc.nsf/pages/SCO_speech_sperling_030999 & gt ; accessed 13 March 2011.
Justice Garry Downes AM, ‘Expert Evidence: The Value of Single or Court-Appointed Experts ‘ ( 2005 ) : & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www.aat.gov.au/SpeechesPapersAndResearch/SpeechesAndPapers/Downes/pdf/ExpertEvidenceNovember2005.pdf & gt ; accessed 13 March 2011.
Michael Wilkinson, ‘Recent Developments Affecting Expert Evidence ‘ in Law Lectures for Practitioners ( 1991 ) : & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/article.jsp? book=14 & A ; issue=140013 & gt ; accessed 13 March 2011.

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