On The System Of Expert Witnesses In Civil Proceedings

With the development of science and technology, more and more cases will rely on the science evidence including expert conclusion. Expert witness presents the evidence in the form of expert conclusions, expert opinions, etc. emphasizing the expert witness's fairness, independence, and examining through the cross-examination. Our country falls in only one form, expert conclusion which is neither scientific nor practical. Under this circumstance, Article 61 in The Supreme Court Civil Procedure Evidence Regulations released in December, 2001 stipulates that: the parties can apply for one or two experts to make explanation concerning the specialty of the case. As a result, the expert witness newly-created in our civil procedure came into being.To understand properly the expert witness system and acknowledge its diverse forms and functions in the proceedings, furthermore, to set up and perfect this system afterwards, it is necessary to study it. The first and the second parts define the expert witness and other appropriate concepts, elaborates the legislation and authorities of common law system and makes a comparison of the expert opinion system between the common law system and the continent law system and evaluates it. The third part briefly reviews the expert opinion currently in operation in our country, and analyzes the present situation and deficiency, its necessity, feasibility of setting up a witness expert system and finally proposes that we should learn from common law countries to set up such an expert opinion system as the expert testimony paralleling with the expert conclusion. The last part puts forward some legislation suggestions for setting up and perfecting the expert witness system based on the facts in our country.