Droit et Cultures (Jun 2011)
La technologie ADN dans la justice pénale : une illustration de la recomposition de l’action de la justice par la science, la technique et l’expertise ?
Abstract
In less than 20 years, the use of DNA has progressively increased and is now considered as one of the less problematic scientific resources in the judicial criminal process. The fact that this new form of authority has been accepted relatively quickly raises the question of the social conditions of its use as an element of proof in judicial context. How and to which extent DNA has been integrated in the legal process and has impacted on the legal reasoning and practices? What kind of role judicial experts and forensic scientists have played to translate and integrate this part of scientific knowledge into the routines of legal professions and courts? To answer these questions, we have to describe and analyse the social practices concerning what is called, in criminal rules of procedure, the Identification by Genetic Analysis (IGA), fine example to show how the judicial inquiry uses and «digests» new technologies. This paper is based on a three-steps approach: firstly, it shows how interesting it is to open the black box of the work done in IGA expert’s work; secondly, it shows how difficult is the integration of scientific aspects in the working-out of law; and finally, the author draws several lessons about the relationships between law and science in this specific context of the use of technology inside the criminal rules of procedure.
