Mr. P. Miklashevich, Chairmen of the Council, and Mr. I. Gruntov, Head of the Criminal Law Chair of the Law Faculty of Belarusian State University presented their reports.

Approved by the Resolution of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus on April 23, 1992, the Judicial Reform Concept Paper was the first document that called for system’s reform of the state forensic institutions. Afterwards the issue of all forensic intuitions’ consolidation into a joint centre was considered repeatedly, in particular, by the First and the Second Congresses of the judges of the Republic of Belarus (in 1997 and 2002 correspondingly).

Some issues in regard to the forensic activities are currently regulated by the Edict of the President of the Republic of Belarus of September 14, 2003 No 407 “On Some Measures to Improve Forensic Activity”. According to it all forensic institutions subordinated to governmental bodies make a national system of forensic institutions. The Edicts attributes coordination of activities of those institutions to the Interdepartmental Commission on Forensic Issues under the Security Council of the Republic of Belarus.

Relevant information was delivered to the Council during the meeting by the Minister of Justice, Mr. O. Slizhevsky; Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Internal affairs, Mr. A. Borovsky; Head of the Sate Forensic Centre of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mr. V. Avsyannikov.

The following speakers shared their views on the topic: Mr. V. Mitskevich, the Deputy Head of the Administration of the Republic of Belarus, Mr. V. Sukalo, the Chairmen the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus, Ms. L. Michalkova, the Chairmen of the Gomel’s Regional Court, Mr. E. Vaytsehovich, Director of the Republican Unitary Enterprise “Minsk Aircraft Repair plant”, Mr. R. Tomkovich, Director of the Legal Department of «Belarusian Bank for Reconstruction and Development «Belinvestbank», Mr. V. Chaychits, Chairman of the National Colleague of Advocates, Mr. I. Mironichenko, Deputy Chairman and the judge retired of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus.

The Council confirmed an increased importance of the quality and the efficiency of forensic inquiry. The same approach secured in the Message On the Prospects of Development of the General Courts of the Republic of Belarus, approved by the Edict of the President of the Republic of Belarus of October 10, 2011 No 454 «On Measures on Improvement of the General Courts of the Republic of Belarus». In accordance with the Message the level of expertise general courts are currently enjoyed is not sufficient enough and should be drastically improved.

In 2011, the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus was established with the view to improve the activity of the bodies of the preliminary investigation, enhance the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of citizens in pre-trial criminal proceedings. That also requires additional efforts to be made to increase effectiveness and efficiency of the forensic expertise.

Establishment of a joint center of forensic expertise in the Republic of Belarus should ensure adequate criminal, civil proceedings, proceedings in economic cases, cases concerning administrative offenses by the use of special knowledge.

Based on a thorough analysis of international law, international experience and national legislation it was concluded, that there are sufficient legal grounds to exclude forensic institutions from the structure of governmental agencies involved in criminal proceedings. This step will enhance adversarial system, proper implementation of the principle of equality of parties and procedural independence of experts.

The Council recognized the need to create in Belarus a joint center of forensic expertise in order to implement the constitutional principle of adversarial proceedings and equality of parties in the legal process, to adequately safeguard the rights and legitimate interests of parties in criminal, civil, economic, or administrative process through the use of scientific expertise, to coordinate and improve the organizational and legal framework of expert activities, to achieve objectivity and scientific validity of expert conclusions.

In pursuit of these goals, the Council proposed the President of the Republic of Belarus to adopt relevant legal act, which would regulate different aspects of establishment of the joint center of forensic expertise (organizational issues, staffing, legal regulation of forensic activities, etc).