Glasnik Advokatske komore Vojvodine (Jan 2015)
Expert opinion in criminal matters based on the new Law on criminal procedure
Abstract
In this paper the author has presented a full and systematic review of the legal provisions on furnishing evidence through expert opinion based on the new Law on Criminal Procedure. This Law was adopted in 2011 and started to apply before all Serbian courts as of October 1, 2013. The Law brought several important changes in this area, to which the author pointed out. In his opinion, some of them are very important: 1) introduction of expert adviser (like technical adviser in the Italian law), who may be appointed by the parties, in addition to their right to propose expert opinion and expert witnesses, always when the authority in charge of the proceedings requires expert opinion, 2) provision of Article 117 paragraph 4 based on which the authority in charge of the proceedings may require that the defendant, lawyer, damaged person as a private prosecutor, who proposes expert opinion, shall pay the costs of expert opinion in advance, which is an exemption from the rule set in Article 261 paragraph 2 that the costs of expert witness, in case of the crime that is being prosecuted ex officio, shall be paid from the budget of the authority in charge of the proceedings, and later shall be charged to the person who is obliged to reimburse them 3) that the capability of the witness to describe what he/she has learnt and noticed about the subject of witnessing may also be subject to expert opinion 4) that expert opinion cannot be required in order to determine or assess legal issues that are subject matter of the proceedings, and that expert witness cannot answer these issues at his own discretion 5) that expert witness may be appointed by the public prosecutor during the preliminary proceedings, which is a logical consequence of extinction of the court investigation and its transfer into the competence of the public prosecutor etc.
