Criteria for appointment of judicial experts in science and technology activities in Vietnam

Criteria for appointment of judicial experts in science and technology activities in Vietnam (Internet image)

Regarding this issue, LawNet would like to answer as follows:

1. Who is judicial expert?

According to Clause 1, Article 2 of the Law on Judicial Expertise 2012 (amended in 2020), judicial expertise means an activity in which a judicial expert uses his/her knowledge, means, scientific, technical and professional methods to draw professional conclusions about matters related to the initiation of legal proceedings, investigation, prosecution, adjudication and enforcement and execution of criminal judgments, settlement of civil cases and administrative cases as solicited for by an authority or person having procedural jurisdiction or requested by an expertise petitioner under the provisions of the Law on Judicial Expertise 2012.

2. Criteria for appointment of judicial experts in science and technology activities in Vietnam

Criteria for the appointment of judicial experts in science and technology activities are specified in Article 4 of Circular 03/2022/TT-BKHCN, specifically as follows:

(1) Vietnamese citizens permanently residing in Vietnam who fully meet the following criteria may be considered and appointed judicial experts in scientific and technological activities:

- Having good health and moral qualities;

- Having a university degree or higher and having practiced professional activities in the field of training for full 05 (five) years or more.

(2) Persons falling into one of the following circumstances may not be appointed judicial experts in scientific and technological activities:

- Loss of civil act capacity or limitation of civil act capacity;

- Being prosecuted for criminal liability; being convicted without a criminal record for an unintentional crime or an intentional less serious crime; being convicted intentionally of a serious crime, a very serious crime, or a particularly serious crime;

- Being subjected to administrative education handling measures in communes, wards, or townships, such as sending to mandatory detoxification or compulsory education establishments.

(3) In addition to the provisions of (1) and (2), judicial assessors in the fields of technology, equipment, machinery, atomic energy, and industrial property (for objects of invention, the design of semiconductor integrated circuits), are required to have a university degree or higher in the following disciplines:

- Science, technique, and technology for judicial expertise in the field of technology, equipment, and machinery;

- One of the branches of nuclear physics, nuclear technology, radiochemistry for judicial expertise in the field of atomic energy;

- One of the branches of technical and technological sciences, physical, chemical, or biological—for judicial assessment of industrial property objects is inventions and layout designs of semiconductor integrated circuits.

3. Rights and obligations of judicial experts in science and technology activities in Vietnam

Judicial expert in science and technology activities will have the same rights and obligations as judicial experts in general as follows:

- Performng expertise according to the solicitation or request of expertise solicitors or requesters or the assignment by agencies or institutions solicited or requested to perform expertise.

- Refusing to perform expertise in case the contents to be expertised fall beyond their professional capacity; objects to be expertised and relevant documents are insufficiently supplied or invalid for making expertising conclusions; the time is not enough for performing expertise or there is another plausible reason.

In case of refusal to perform expertise, to notify the refusal in writing to the expertise solicitor or requester within 5 working days after receiving a decision to solicit or request expertise.

- Attending expertise retraining courses for improving their professional skills and legal knowledge.

- Establishing judicial expertise offices when fully satisfying the conditions specified in Article 15 of the Law on Judicial Expertise 2012.

- Establishing or joining judicial experts' associations in accordance with the law on associations.

- Enjoying regimes and policies provided in the  Law on Judicial Expertise 2012 and other relevant laws.

- Having other rights and obligations specified in Article 23 and Clause 1, Article 34 of the Law on Judicial Expertise 2012.

(Article 11 of the Law on Judicial Expertise 2012 (amended in 2020))

Tran Thanh Rin

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