Judicial expertise, norms have credibility.
Since the promulgation and implementation of "Decision on the Management of Judicial Appraisal" in the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) in 2005, the judicial appraisal industry has developed rapidly. According to statistics, in 2016, there were 4,872 judicial appraisal institutions and 54,198 judicial appraisers registered by judicial administrative organs, and more than 2.13 million cases of various judicial appraisal services were completed, more than eight times that of 2005. At the same time of rapid development, the development of forensic expertise industry is also facing some problems and troubles.
Violations of laws and regulations occur from time to time.
Document identification restores the authenticity of signatures and seals, and does not provide opportunities for counterfeiters; Forensic pathology identification, determine the responsibility of medical disputes; Recognition of relatives under the complicated situation of DNA identification … Judicial expertise opinions affect the nature of the case, the severity of the crime, the success or failure of the lawsuit, and the personal rights and property rights of the parties.
However, in the field of judicial expertise, some violations of laws and regulations occur from time to time, such as violating the rules of identification procedures and technical operation norms, carrying out identification activities beyond the scope of registered business, and organizing unqualified personnel to engage in judicial expertise business. In November, 2015, Jiangxi Jingsheng Judicial Appraisal Center was given a warning by Jiangxi Provincial Department of Justice, because it published false propaganda pictures of relevant qualification certificates on its website without obtaining relevant qualification certificates. In February this year, the Ministry of Justice informed the Lingshi Judicial Appraisal Center of Shanxi Province about the violation of laws and regulations: the center went beyond the registered business scope and organized appraisers who did not have the qualification of forensic pathologists to engage in forensic pathological appraisal illegally; Charge the blood alcohol content test and appraisal fee beyond the unified charging standard of Shanxi Province …
In 2016 alone, more than 230 cases of illegal judicial expertise were investigated and dealt with nationwide, and 132 appraisal institutions were cancelled. Thousands of appraisers were cancelled due to unqualified qualifications and unqualified related examinations, which effectively standardized the practice order and improved the overall ability level of the industry. However, this also reflects the problems existing in the entry threshold of judicial appraisal institutions and appraisers. "At present, China’s judicial appraisers have problems such as inconsistent qualification management and appraisal technical standards. On the other hand, it is difficult for some judicial organs to judge the professionalism of judicial authentication institutions when entrusting judicial authentication, which will also affect the accuracy and applicability of the authentication results. " Qin Xiyan, a lawyer from Hunan Province, introduced for example that a procuratorate needs to assess the value of real estate when handling criminal cases involving state-owned assets, but entrusts a price certification center to determine the price. However, the principles and standards on which the real estate value assessment is based are obviously different from the price determination, and the appraisal results will naturally affect the handling of cases by judicial organs.
The lack of appraisal standards and technical specifications for some appraisal matters is also a factor that causes dissatisfaction among the parties. The reporter learned that at present, the identification matters with more complaints and opinions from the parties are usually those that are difficult to rely on the detection of instruments and equipment and mainly rely on the appraisers to use professional knowledge and experience for identification and judgment, such as handwriting identification, forensic psychiatric identification, and medical damage identification. In practice, due to many theories and methods, these appraisal items often lack unified appraisal standards and technical specifications, which is easy to cause the parties to question and be dissatisfied with the appraisal opinions.
Profit-seeking, affecting the fairness of appraisal
Repeated identification and contradictory identification are a prominent problem in judicial expertise. Liu Jianwei, deputy director of the Institute of Forensic Science and Technology Appraisal of China University of Political Science and Law and an expert in document retrieval, analyzed that most appraisal institutions are responsible for their own profits and losses, and some of them are profit-seeking. In order to win more appraisal commissions, they relax their standards and control, which affects the quality and credibility of appraisal.
"In a labor contract dispute, the company sued Li for terminating the labor contract according to the contract, but Li argued that the contract was not signed by himself. The court entrusted an appraisal agency to conduct appraisal, and the first appraisal result was’ not signed by Li’; At the second trial, we appraised it, but the result was the opposite. This is because the sample used in the first appraisal was written by the party Li in court, not his real writing habits, which led to re-appraisal. " Liu Jianwei said that this is because the appraisal agency indulged the simple handling of the sample taken by the judge to a certain extent for the source of the case.
"In recent years, the business volume of paternity testing has increased rapidly. In order to do more paternity testing business, some appraisal institutions have set up cross-regional receiving points and sampling points to carry out false propaganda, which has seriously affected the image of the industry." Deng Jiaming, director of the Judicial Appraisal Administration of the Ministry of Justice, said, "The number of cases remains basically stable, and the tax authorities levy taxes on appraisal institutions according to enterprises, which is relatively heavy. In an environment of market-oriented free competition, it is also easy to objectively lead to profit-seeking behavior. In response to these problems, the Ministry of Justice carried out a special rectification of the paternity test business in 2016, which effectively standardized the identification order. "
With the development of society, the updating speed of identification instruments and equipment is accelerated, and the original equipment configuration standards can not meet the requirements of current litigation activities for identification work. In addition, the requirements for the number of appraisers and the requirements for funds and residences are not high in the access conditions of institutions, which leads to the emergence of a large number of judicial identification institutions with small scale and general technical conditions. "At the same time, due to the lack of scientific development planning, the number of some types of appraisal institutions is on the high side, while the number of appraisal institutions for some urgent litigation matters is less, and the regional distribution is not balanced. The situation of small, scattered and chaotic institutions cannot be fundamentally changed, which affects and restricts the healthy development of the judicial appraisal industry to a certain extent." The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Justice introduced.
In terms of the access of appraisers, the standards for the identification of related majors in the legal access conditions are not very clear, and the professional requirements for appraisers are limited to professional titles, professional qualifications or working experience, resulting in a mixed team of appraisers. "In order to ensure that the appraisal opinions put forward by appraisers are authoritative, objective and scientific, they need certain professional knowledge and practical experience, that is to say, they should be experts in their appraisal business fields." The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Justice said: "In practice, the judicial administrative organs have access to those who meet the statutory conditions, which leads to some appraisers’ professional mismatch, average technical ability and poor sense of responsibility, which affects the quality of appraisal."
Judicial expertise management should be refined
In 2015, the state delegated the pricing authority of judicial expertise fees to the provincial level, and some places failed to introduce new standards on time. Recently, the Ministry of Justice issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Judicial Appraisal Fees", which requires that when formulating charging standards, all localities should scientifically and reasonably formulate charging standards for judicial appraisal according to the local economic and social development level and taking into account factors such as appraisal cost and difficulty; It is necessary to strictly standardize and uniformly implement, and study and standardize the setting of the charging standard "downward floating range" to avoid vicious competition among appraisal institutions; Where the local standards for judicial expertise fees have not yet been formulated, they must be completed before the end of June this year.
This is a policy response to the topic of "sky-high appraisal fee" In February of this year, Weibo, a lawyer in Sichuan, attracted attention: "A case of Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court needs to be appraised. A fingerprint, two seals and a signature were appraised, and the asking price was 170,000 yuan. The appraisal fee is catching up with the legal fees!" The appraisal fee of more than 170,000 yuan has attracted attention. One controversial point is that the Measures for the Administration of Judicial Appraisal Fees have been abolished, Sichuan has not yet issued local standards, and there is a gap in legal convergence. "This case is a target amount of 30 million, involving three projects. It is not too much to calculate 57,000 for each project alone, but it is not clearly defined whether all three projects in a case are calculated at 57,000." Liu Jianwei said.
"At present, the industry management of judicial expertise is still somewhat extensive." Guo Zhaoming, deputy director of the Institute of Forensic Science and Technology Appraisal of China University of Political Science and Law, said that the judicial administration should be more refined, and the judicial administrative department should further tighten the entry threshold for judicial appraisers and appraisal institutions, strengthen the training of professionals, and promote the justice of judicial appraisal through a series of measures.
The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Justice said that in view of the problems existing in the access to judicial expertise, the next step is to take measures: First, strictly control the customs, strengthen the role of expert evaluation in the examination and registration work, and refuse to register legal persons or other organizations that do not have the instruments and equipment necessary for the appraisal and the testing laboratories that have passed the metrological certification or laboratory accreditation according to law, as well as personnel with weak professional relevance, unqualified professional skills or deregistered; The second is to refine the access standards, revise and improve the equipment configuration standards of judicial authentication institutions and the classification regulations of judicial authentication practices as soon as possible, and formulate and introduce the standards for the identification of related professions and related work of judicial authenticators, so as to provide a clear basis and reference for the audit and registration work; The third is to strictly implement responsibilities and seriously pursue accountability.
According to the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Justice, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee clearly put forward the requirement of improving the unified judicial expertise management system. At present, in accordance with the requirements of the central authorities, the Ministry of Justice, together with relevant departments, is making every effort to promote and improve the reform of the unified judicial expertise management system and focus on solving the institutional and mechanism problems that affect and restrict the development of the judicial expertise industry. Relevant issues such as access, quality management, charging system and the public welfare nature of judicial authentication institutions, which are of social concern, will be gradually solved in the reform. He said, "The Ministry of Justice will continue to do a good job in the management and quality construction of judicial expertise, vigorously strengthen the supervision of the judicial expertise industry, and strive to promote the healthy development of the judicial expertise industry."