Prerequisites for Establishment

Between June and September 2024, experts of the EU Project 'Pravo-Justice', with the support of the European Union, conducted a study on the directions of further reform of the judicial expertise sector in Ukraine. Representatives of the judiciary, prosecution, police, as well as providers and users of judicial expertise services, shared their assessments and vision of the necessary reforms with European experts. 

The results of the study are presented in the Report "IMPROVEMENT OF FORENSIC SCIENCE AND JUDICIAL EXPERTISE SYSTEM IN UKRAINE",prepared by Paweł Rybiński, International Expert of the EU Project 'Pravo-Justice' and Chairman of the Board of the Homeland Security Institute EFIC (Poland).

The activities of the community of private experts are given special attention in the Report. Observers expressed significant concern over the disproportionately small number of private experts in Ukraine, which clearly contributes to the overall inefficiency of the judicial expertise system. 

According to the results of the study, the main reasons for the weakness of the private judicial expertise market are the current regulatory framework and conditions, which make the exercise of judicial expert functions unattractive for private individuals:

"The system in its current form offers them no incentives, only disciplinary sanctions. Moreover, the private expert community does not feel like a partner in discussions on reform with the Ministry of Justice. This, in turn, generates hopelessness about change, and as a result the community is poorly organized, highly fragmented, uninterested in consolidation, and does not constitute a strong representation to defend its interests. Therefore, private experts are unable to achieve such changes in the system that would, instead of continuously strengthening disciplinary measures, increase the attractiveness of the judicial expert function, improve the quality of expert work, and ultimately the efficiency of the system".

To support the establishment of such an association, the EU Project 'Pravo-Justice', in cooperation with the Homeland Security Institute EFIC (Warsaw, Poland) and international judicial experts, conducted a six-month training course for Ukrainian judicial experts entitled 'On the Way to Establishing a Professional Association'.

The absence of a unified voice of the professional community not only complicates interaction with state authorities but also deprives experts of opportunities for development and for influencing the reform of the sector.

The training participants gained detailed insight into the experience of professional self-regulatory organizations of experts in EU countries, the process of building professional organizations, and their place and role in regulating the activities of judicial experts. Special attention was given to the legal and regulatory framework governing the work of professional organizations in EU Member States, including their statutes and internal regulatory acts.

It was the active group of participants of the training course who initiated the establishment of the Confederation of Non-State Judicial Experts and Expert Organizations of Ukraine, with the aim of ensuring a truly unified representation of judicial experts and expert organizations in defending the professional interests of the expert community.

After the publication of the Memorandum of Cooperation and Intent to Establish the Confederation of Non-State Experts and Expert Organizations, other members of the expert community also began joining the initiative — judicial experts, public organizations, and legal entities facilitating the provision of judicial expertise services.

The Memorandum is open for accession. Join us and become a partner of the initiative!