Legal status of legal expert on law issues in civil procedure of Ukraine

Abstract

The research paper is devoted to s the problems of determining the legal status of the expert on law in civil procedure in Ukraine. The peculiarities of his involvement in the judicial process are analyzed and ways to improve his legal status are proposed.

Today, lawyers are discussing the advisability of involving a legal expert in litigation. Thus, according to some lawyers, judges in Ukraine act on the principle of "jus novit curia" («a judge knows the law»), and according to others, the consolidation of the rights and obligations of an expert in law at the legislative level is consistent with the course of development of legal policy in the field of democracy and the rule of law proclaimed by Ukraine.

In the legal literature, as a rule, the problems of participation of a legal expert in court proceedings are revealed through the prism of scientific and practical analysis of Article 8 of the Law of Ukraine "On International Private Law", according to which the court may apply to the expert to establish the content of foreign law. At the same time, legal science requires complex scientific research on the legal personality of the expert on legal issues as a participant of legal relations arising in the implementation of civil proceedings.

The author emphasizes that the main purpose of a legal expert is to assist in matters that require specialized knowledge. At the same time, the norms of the Civil Procedural Code require further elaboration in terms of a comprehensive solution of the issue of participation of the legal expert in civil proceedings.

It should be noted that the conclusions of the legal expert may concern only the issues of analogy of law or law or application of foreign law, they cannot solve the issues of gaps or conflicts, as this task is solely the responsibility of the court when making decisions, and no one has the right to indicate the courts, the decision to make or how to solve the dispute correctly.

Recent results of law enforcement activities have shown that neither the court nor the participants in the process are yet ready to involve a legal expert and their findings in the process. Thus, in practice, in most cases it is limited to providing legal positions to the advantageous party under the guise of the opinion of an expert in law or application of conclusions on issues that are not provided for by law.

In addition, problems arise in the ratio of a legal expert with other participants of the process, the proportionality of the costs of their services and issues of their compensation, the impossibility of bringing them to responsibility for the refusal or provision of an unreliable conclusion, etc.