The Research On The Establishment Of Expert Witness Institution In Maritime Litigation

It takes on more characteristics of technique and specialty in modern maritime litigation. The technical issue often acts as the keys to the case inhere. And all the parties often place much more emphases on the proof of the technical ones, with aim to obtain the favorable judgments. Courts in different countries take different measures to deal with technical issues. The mode of conclusion of judicial expertise applies to Continental law system, whereas, the mode of expert witness in the Anglo-American law system. Both modes have their own advantages and disadvantages. This article aims to build firm academic foundation for the reform of the maritime judicial expertise institution and the establishment of the expert witness institution in maritime litigation, through deep research on the expert witness institution in Anglo-American law.The article introduces the expert witness institution in Anglo-American law;analyses the connotation of expert witness;indicates the legislation status and the latest development about expert witness along with the entrustment, right, obligation and legal liability of the expert witness;emphasizes the inherent contradiction and the development trend of this system. Thereafter, the author discusses the necessity starting with the outstanding problems existing in our maritime judicial expertise institution, combined with the characteristic of technique and specialty of maritime litigation;discusses the feasibility starting with the attributes of the expert report, combined with the development trend of Chinese maritime judicial expertise institution and the method of economic analysis. On the basis of the above discussion, the author gives a few primary proposals on how to reform the maritime judicial expertise institution and how to establish expert witness institution in maritime litigation. The design mainly involves changing the institution evaluation to expert evaluation, constituting maritime expert witness pool, entrusting the assessor of the court, etc. All the research aims to do some benefit to the perfection of Chinese maritime judicial expertise institution.