Reports Are Advisory and Non-Binding to The Court… A Lecturer at the College of Law in UoB: The Impartiality and Integrity of The Judicial Expert Are of key Requirements and Ethics of The Profession

Sakhir – University of Bahrain (Yasmeen Khalaf)

29 May 2023

A legal event at the College of Law at the University of Bahrain (UoB) stressed the importance of the impartiality and integrity of the judicial expert who is assigned by the court or used by the litigants, noting that the expert must sign an impartiality and integrity form.

This came during a lecture organized by the Scientific Activities Committee of the Department of Private Law in the college titled: “Judicial Experience, between Theory and Practice”, in which the assistant professors of civil law at the University, Dr. Al-Haytham Omar Saleem, Dr. Arwa Abdullatif Al-Sheikh, and the forgery & counterfeit expert at the Ministry of Interior, Waleed Abdullatif Sulais, participated.

The lecture, which was held recently in the College of Law at the University, dealt with the chapter on expertise in the law of evidence, and explained the legal meaning of an expert, and the reasons for summoning him/her to court, as a procedure used by the court considering he/she is a person specialized in a specific case that is the subject of a dispute.

The two lecturers, Dr. Saleem and Dr. Al-sheikh explained the conditions for approving the expert, which include: they have obtained an academic certificate of not less than a bachelor’s degree in the field of the case subject of the dispute, to be distinguished in their work, to have experience of not less than seven years in their field of work, and a license in such field of work, and to have a good character, conduct, and reputation, with no criminal sentences issued against them.

Inadittion, they said that in the event of complaints against the expert, an investigation committee or a disciplinary committee will be formed, and they may be prevented from practicing work, and the penalty can be up to the removal of the expert’s name from the roster of experts in the court.

While on the methods of resorting to the expert, they referred to two methods, the first of which is the court’s use of the expert in certain cases, such as proving the authenticity of the signature, and the second is the litigants’ resorting to judicial expertise, pointing to the development of the method of the litigants contracting with the expert before the court pleadings, but it is a method that does not allow the contracting expert to view the private papers, and therefore he shall be forced to obtain permission to view such papers, and the expert is obligated to sign an integrity and impartiality form.

Moreover, regarding the duties of the expert, they said: “The expert performs their task according to the required limits, and they shall perform their work with impartiality and integrity, shall maintain the confidentiality of information, and submits the report within the period specified for the court, in addition to being obligated to return the documents to their owners.”.

While on the duties of those seeking expertise, they indicated the necessity of obtaining permission from the court to view the documents and to conclude the contract, then it will be the court’s duty to determine the technical limits of the expert, and estimate the expert’s fees, as the court does not resort to expertise except in necessity, due to the high cost of hiring the expert, and that the losing party in the case shall bear the expert’s fees.

Furthermore, Dr. Saleem and Dr. Al-Sheikh, confirmed that the expert report is non-binding to the court, and it shall turn into an official document, as the expert report is not a judicial ruling, but rather contributes to the judicial ruling.

For his part, the forgery & counterfeit expert at the Ministry of Interior, Waleed Abdullatif Sulais, reviewed the mechanism for verifying the authenticity of documents in the event of an appeal against them for forgery before the competent court, pointing out that technical expertise is one of the methods of criminal evidence, which is subject to the judge’s conviction and discretion.

Sulais added that the forgery may be partial or full, and it is detected either with “unaided eye” or through accurate devices. Pointing out that the penalty for counterfeiting may reach ten years in prison, and it may reach a life sentence or even death penalty in the event of counterfeiting currency, as this causes a problem or imbalance in the country’s financial economy.

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