The Judge-Expert Relationship: An Unlikely Couple in Temporary Cohabitation

The judge-expert relationship is characterized by a double asymmetry (prescriptor-incompetent technical/performer-technical competence). This situation carries multiple risks of misunderstanding at different stages of expertise: choice of technician, determination of the nature, purpose and scope of the mission, conduct of expert operations, management of the triangular relations of the magistrate, the expert and the parties to the procedure, drafting of the report, deadlines for execution). Identifying and anticipating these risks, looking for ways to prevent or overcome them in relation to the institutional, human and financial issues of civil and criminal judicial expertise, in the interest of the litigant: this is the subject of this draft reflection in the light of the professional experience of a magistrate in the field.