Legal expertise in criminal proceedings: pros and cons (unrecognized as evidence, but used as a service in criminal proceedings)

The article presents the point of view that special knowledge in the field of criminal proceedings does not include legal knowledge. The opinions of some representatives of a different understanding of forensic legal expertise are analyzed, who believe that it has long been necessary to “remove the shackles from the institute of forensic legal expertise” and give it the force of evidence in criminal proceedings. The point of view of representatives from science, claiming to be an innovation, is presented about the need to “think” about returning to the idea of “an expert as a scientific court”, regardless of the type of expertise, with the prospects of giving the expert “the authority to establish certain factual circumstances”. As well as the still unnoticed innovation about the need to introduce a review of the expert’s opinion into the procedural legislation, giving this document a “separate legal status”. The authors believe that the needs of investigative and judicial practice are not in the subjective legal opinions of individual functionaries of the science of law, drawn up in “expert opinions”, “reviews of expert opinions”, the procedural value of which is in the storehouse of inadmissible evidence, along with the conclusions of experts and polygraph examiners. The need for investigative and judicial practice in obtaining highly qualified specialists who know the laws, their moral essence, and possess the skills to apply them in strict accordance with the law.