Author(s): Maria Fodor / Language(s): Romanian
Issue: 02/2020
The motivated findings and conclusions of the expert or of the laboratory or specialized institute from which the expertise has been requested will be recorded in a written report. Exceptionally, when the expertise is carried out in front of the body that disposed/ordered its execution, the expertise report may be oral. The form of the expertise report also depends on the nature, as well as the specificity of the problem that generated the expertise. In all cases where the expertise requires time, documentations, travels, researches, analyses, laboratory tests, etc., the expertise report will take the written form. In case the expert can immediately express his opinion on the factual circumstance whose clarification requires specialized knowledge, he will be heard during the meeting, and his opinion will be recorded in a minutes, according to the provisions relative to the recording of the witness statement, which apply accordingly. As such, the expertise report is the document by which the expert informs the court of all the legally collected information which clarify (bring light on) the issues to be examined, being, therefore, the means by which the evidence is presented to the judge. The expert must limit himself to reporting what he has perceived, without expressing his opinion on the consequences of fact and of law that might result. The text of the report will include clear, short and dense phrases and sentences, using accessible vocabulary, without ambiguous formulations or terms and without references to proceedings outside the file. The technical terms, which are difficult to access, will be explained at the bottom of the page or in brackets, in order to facilitate the understanding of the conclusions. The legislator of the Civil Procedure Code does not expressly provide the mentions which the expertise report must contain. But Article 21 of the Government Ordinance No 2/2000 on the organization of the activity of judicial and extrajudicial technical expertise refers to the following parts: the introductory part; the description of the operations for carrying out the expertise, the objections or explanations of the parties, as well as the analysis of these objections or explanations based on the findings of the expert or of the specialist; the conclusions of the expert or specialist. If necessary, the expertise report should mention the summoning of the parties by registered letter with declared content and acknowledgment of receipt, specifying that the proof of receipt is attached to the expertise report. It should not be overlooked the fact that the mentions regarding the personal findings of the expert are evidence until the forgery is declared. On the other hand, the other mentions in the expertise report can be countered by the other evidence in the file. The forensic expertise report can only be removed by another means of evidence of equal scientific value, that is to say, also through a forensic expertise report, and not through the deposition of some witnesses, for example. In the situation of the administration of two expertises whose conclusions are contradictory, the court will accept one of them and remove the other or remove them both and will use other evidence, and may even order a new expertise. However, contradictory forensic expertises must be submitted for approval to the Higher Forensic Commission. The extrajudicial expertise has no probative power. However, the extrajudicial expertise presented by the parties within the trials concerning lands has the same probative value as the judicial expertise, if it is carried out by experts authorized by the Ministry of Justice.
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