FEATURES OF JUDICIAL EXPERT EXAMINATIONS IN THE BULGARIAN LEGAL SYSTEM

Abstract

This paper clarifies the essence of the judicial expert examinations in some of the procedural branches of the Bulgarian legal system. The significance of such judicial examination is the source for making the right decisions by the law enforcement authorities when specific knowledge and skills are required to solve a specific case. Legal doctrine does not have a single opinion on the essence of the judicial expert examinations. Differences exist with regard to the content of the examination, the types of examination, whether the examination should be considered as evidence or means of proof, etc. [1, 2, 3]
Older opinions, advocated by some Russian authors - A.M. Cheltsov, N. V. Cheltsova, R.D. Rahounov, S.P. Fortinskiy and others, are limited to the fact that the expert examination used in the criminal and civil process is evidence. [4] The authors argue that, from the legal point of view, the expert's conclusion, drawn from an expert's opinion, is a source of evidence. It is assumed that facts and circumstances that are not known to the authority that has appointed the examination and are the source of substantive evidence are considered in the conclusion of the expert. The thesis of these authors is also reinforced by the notion that the judicial examination not only reveals additional aspects of manifestation of the various issues under consideration, but also examines their mutual relation, establishes the causes-consequences between them, reveals the legal nature of the case, and also a scientific analysis of the facts is verified. Therefore, the judicial expert examination is considered an independent means of proof and serves as a source for the rise of new evidence.
Other authors hold alternative guideline on the legal nature of the judicial examination. Their essential point is that the examinations are not objective forms of evidence, nor evidence, as they are not facts of the objective reality relating to the circumstances of the case. Prof. Stefan Pavlov and the Russian author I. Petrukhin support this view. According to those authors, the examination is an activity aimed at clarifying the circumstances of the case, and is therefore an activity connected with the lawsuit and is a part of the litigation itself. “Examination is not a fact of the objective reality associated with the facts of the case and hence a procedure-related activity but an activity aimed at clarifying the circumstances of the case and therefore a litigation-related activity, which is part of the litigation process itself ... “. [5]
In order to elucidate the nature of the judicial examinations, the terms “objective forms of evidence” and “evidence” should be first clarified. There are legal definitions of these concepts in a number of Bulgarian legal instruments, but there is no uniform legal framework, which could be explained by the specifics of the separate proceedings - criminal, civil, administrative. Statutory definitions are contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure (Article 102 et seq. - CCP), The Code of Taxes and Social Security (Article 37 et seq.), The Code of Administrative Procedure (Article 39 et seq. – CAP), and others. Therefore, this article follows the logical consistency of the individual regulatory regimes according to the procedure in which the relevant type of judicial examinations has been established. The current work draws special attention to the particularities of the expert examinations in the criminal litigation and the constitutional justice in Bulgaria.