Quality Control System of Judicial Expertise in China

ZHU Guang-you

（Shanghai Key Laboratory of Forensic Medicine,Institute of Forensic Science,Ministry of Justice,P.R.China,Shanghai 200063,China）

·教育与管理·

Quality Control System of Judicial Expertise in China

ZHU Guang-you

（Shanghai Key Laboratory of Forensic Medicine,Institute of Forensic Science,Ministry of Justice,P.R.China,Shanghai 200063,China）

forensic medicine;expert testimony;quality control

Article IC:1004-5619（2013）04-0295-02

The current quality control system of judicial expertise in China

For a long time in China,the administrative organization of justice has been subordinate to universities,Ministry of Public Health,Ministry of Public Security,the Procuratorate,the Court and National Security Agency.These administrative organizations are mainly in charge of the management of judicial expertise.The quality control system of judicial expertise can be classified into three levels.

At the first level,the laws and regulations were decreed by the national and regional governments to regulate judicial expertise services,which specifically refer to“the Decision on Management of Judicial Expertise by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of P.R.China”,“Interim Measures of Judicial Expertise of People’s Court”by the Supreme Court of P.R.China,“Regulations on Appraisal upon Entrustment of People’s Court”,“Service Regulations ofForensic Physicians by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of P.R.China（proposed regulations）”,“Service Regulations for Examination of Documents by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate（proposed regulations）”,“Regulations of Registration of the Institutes of Judicial Expertise”,“Regulations of Registration of the Expert Examiners”,“Regulations on Criminal Expert Evaluation by Ministry of Public Security of P.R.China”,“Registration on Management of the Institutes of Judicial Expertise”,“Regulations on Registration of Judicial Expert Examiners”,and“General Principles of Judicial Expertise Process（proposed regulations）”.There are“Regulations on Management of Judicial Expertise”by the Standing Committees ofsuch provinces as Heilongjiang,Jilin, Henan,Hubei,Sichuan,Hebei,Ningxia HuiAutonomous Region.

At the second,the documents of technical specifications of the judicial expertise industry,which specifically refer to the following laws and regulations:“Standards of Severe Injury Certification in China”,“Standards of Minor Injury Certification in China（temporary provisions）”,were decreed with the cooperation of the Supreme Court of P.R.China, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of P.R.China, Ministry of Public Security,and Ministry of Justice;“Regulations on Judicial Expertise of Mental Disease”were decreed with the cooperation of the Supreme Court of P.R.China,the Supreme People’s ProcuratorateofP.R.China,MinistryofPublic Health,Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Public Security;the compulsory regulations such as“Grading of the Wounded and Disabled in Traffic Accidents”,“Testing of Alcohol in Drivers’Blood and Breath”were decreed with the Committee of National Standard in China;the regulations were compiled and published by the Committee of Standardization of Science and Technology concerning criminal matters,such as“Scientific Evaluation Regulations of the DNA Laboratories of Court”,“Use of DNADatabaseinCourtandtheStructureof Database”,“Standardization of DNA Database Used in Court”,“Regulations with Regard to Packaging, Storing and Delivering in Poisonous Cases”,“Regulations of the Collection,Reservation and Delivery of Forensic Medical Examination of Material Evidence”,“Medico-legal Autopsy”,“Regulations of the Collection,Reservation,Packaging and Delivery of Materials of the Forensic Pathology”,“Regulations on Medicolegal Examination of the Corpse”,and“RegulationsofExpertiseofPoisonedCorpus”.“Standardization Law of P.R.China”was decreed in April,1990,and the Committee of Standardization ofScienceandTechnologyconcerningCriminal Matters was set up in January,1992.The Committee of Standardization has declared 191 projects of either compiling or revising standards since its establishment.So far,they have completed 80 projects of standards in the industry,68 standards of the science and technology industry,and 4 system tables of professional expertise standard.Within them, 27 are standards of poison analysis;15,standards of photography and recording on criminal inspection;13,standards of medico-legal expertise;7,stan-dards of automatic system for fingerprint recognition;2,standards of physical and chemical expertise;and 3,standards of criminal technology.

At the third,the regulations were compiled by the institutes of judicial expertise.For example,the“General Guide to Test and Modify the Capability of the Laboratory”according to ISO/IEC17025: 1999（CNAL/AC01:2002）,General Requirements for Various Inspection Organizations,taking into consideration the specialty of judicial expertise and inner resources,set up the compound quality system required by international standard of ISO/IEC 17025: 1999 and ISO/IEC 17020:1998.The quality control system will integrate all the necessary elements for the quality control of judicial expertise,including organization,procedure,resource,staff,equipment, material,method and environment,which are connected and interacted with each other.The quality control system will describe and define all the necessary elements of quality control of judicial expertise clearly in a set of complete documents.The documents are classified into four parts:quality, procedure,execution and record.

The quality manuals define the strategy,target and organization of administrative departments of judicial expertise,the rights,responsibilities and relationships of different staffs,the descriptions and explanations of the elements of the quality control system,conformityassessment procedure,revision and control method of the quality manual.

The process documents（29 in all）specify the aims,ranges,duties,requirements and detailed work procedures.Usually,the 5W1Y principle is adopted: what,who,where,when,why and how.Such documents also serve as guidelines when the quality control system operates.

The execution documents（137 in all）include the manual of execution,flow of documents,regulations,etc.Such documents mainly control the execution process of specific activity.

The record documents（200 in all）cover all kinds of quality control records,technology records, tables and reports,serving as original evidence of the effective function of the quality control system, objective evidence of supervising and evaluating the quality of judicial expertise.Besides,the research center also compiles regulations and standards for the judicial expertise in other 50 projects pertaining to forensic medicine,forensic psychiatry,forensic medical examination of material evidence,forensic toxicology and chemistry,and verification of documents as well.The management level and technical capability of the research center is officially recognized by China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment（CNAS）,since they have passed the on-the-spot evaluation of CNAS.

Growing trend of quality control system of judicial expertise in China

According to“Decision on Management of Judicial Expertise by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress”,China will set up a consistent management system of judicial expertise. The Administrative Department for Justice of the State Council of P.R.China will be responsible for the national registration of expert examiners and institutes of judicial expertise.The Administrative Department for Justice of the Provincial Government will abide by the Decision and be responsible for the registration,name list compilation,and public notices of the experts and institutes of judicial expertise.

The quality control system of judicial expertise will develop in following directions:1）with the compilation and implementation of the regulations such as“Regulations on Expert Registration”,“Regulations on Further Education of Expert Examiners”,and“Regulations on Registration of Good Faith Assessment”,only eligible experts will be certified so as to make sure they have qualified professional knowledge and techniques;2）with the compilation and implementation of“Management Regulations on Registration of the Institutes of Judicial Expertise”,“Regulations on Qualification Assessment of the Institutes of Judicial Expertise”,and“Regulations on Quality Control Assessment of Judicial Expertise”, only eligible institutes of judicial expertise will be certified so as to ensure that they have qualified capability and management level;3）with the compilation and implementation of regulations such as“General Principals of Judicial Expertise Process”and“Code of Ethnics of Expert Examiners”,the behavior of the experts and institutes will be regulated to make sure the justice and authority of judicial expertise;4）with the legislation of national standard,regional standard and professional standard of the judicial expertise technology,the method of judicial expertise will be unified in order to ensure their scientific accuracy.

As required by the Decision,all the institutes of judicial expertise should“have appraised laboratories, which is a legal necessity to deal with their cases, and which is metrologically accredited or approved by authoritative laboratories”.Therefore,as far as the institute is concerned,the quality control system of judicial expertise will mainly promote the quality control mode of the Research Center of Science and Technology in Judicial Expertise under the supervision of Ministry of Justice,and all the institutes of judicial expertise should be required to set up their own quality control system as soon as possible.

（Received date:2013-06-08）

（Editor:LIANG Lu）

DF795.4

B

10.3969/j.issn.1004-5619.2013.04.015

Author:ZHU Guang-you（1953—）,male,research fellow, master mentor in forensic clinic and research;E-mail:zhugy@ ssfjd.cn