Observance of the Probative Value of the Psychiatric Forensic Expertise - Guarantee of Avoiding Judicial Errors in Criminal Proceedings

Abstract

Psychiatric forensic expertise is a type of evidence with a high degree of scientificity, objectivity and credibility, which places it at the top of the evidence hierarchy in criminal proceedings. The practice of the courts reveals a series of cases in which the conclusions of the psychiatric forensic examination were not taken into account at the time when the court issued a verdict, considering that the grounds on which the expertise was eliminated as relevant evidence in those cases is sometimes debatable. This article analyses the probative value of forensic psychiatric expertise from the perspective of the conflict that arises in judicial practice between the principle of scientificity of the evidence and the principle of sovereignty of the judge in assessing the evidence. It analyses the effects that scientificity has on the judge's actual possibility of assessing conclusiveness of the expertise by comparison with other evidence. The conclusions are that the psychiatric forensic expertise has the greatest probative force among all the evidence that could attest to the mental state of the victim or the accused; this evidence can be disregarded by the court at the time of ruling only if there is evidence with equal probative value to combat it; ordering new evidence by the court (supplements to expertise, new expertise, objections, requesting clarifications from the expert) to verify the credibility of the conclusions of the initial expertise should be done only after ensuring a framework that guarantees the compliance with the principle of scientific management of evidence.