CPR Part 19
Definition
Criminal Procedure Rules Part 19 (England and Wales): the procedural framework governing expert evidence in criminal proceedings, requiring disclosure of methodology, range of opinion, and imposing an overriding duty to the court on the expert.
- Jurisdiction
- England and Wales, criminal proceedings
- Governs
- Expert evidence in criminal cases
- Requires
- Disclosure of methodology, range of opinion
- Imposes
- Overriding duty to the court
Common questions
Why does CPR Part 19 require disclosure of the range of opinion, not just the expert's conclusion?+
Requiring the range of reasonable opinion prevents an expert from presenting a single conclusion as if it were the only scientifically tenable one when other qualified experts could reasonably reach a different view, giving the court a fuller picture of scientific uncertainty rather than an artificially confident result.
How does the overriding duty to the court under Part 19 constrain an expert instructed by one side?+
Even though a prosecution or defence expert is instructed and typically paid by one party, Part 19 requires that expert's overriding duty to be to the court, meaning their evidence must be objective and unbiased regardless of who instructed them, and this duty takes precedence over any obligation to the instructing party.
Related terms
- ASTM E30
- The ASTM International Committee on Forensic Sciences, which maintains standards including E2388 (minimum training requirements for document examiners) and E2520 (examination of...
- Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 (BSA)
- India's current evidence statute, which replaced the Indian Evidence Act 1872. Section 63 of the BSA governs electronic records and requires a...
- Daubert Standard
- The US federal evidentiary standard (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993) requiring that expert testimony be based on scientifically valid methods with...
- eIDAS
- EU Regulation 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services: establishes legal recognition for qualified electronic signatures and electronic documents across EU member...
- ENFSI EDEWG
- European Network of Forensic Science Institutes, European Document Examiners Working Group: the EU-level body coordinating document examination standards, proficiency tests, and the...
- Frye Standard
- The US legal test for admissibility of scientific evidence, originating from Frye v. United States (1923), which required that a technique be...
- ISO/IEC 17025
- The international standard for testing and calibration laboratories, published jointly by the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission. It...
- Likelihood Ratio (LR)
- The ratio of two conditional probabilities: the probability of the observed evidence given the prosecution's hypothesis (same source), divided by the probability...
- OSAC Documents Subcommittee
- The NIST-hosted body within the Organization of Scientific Area Committees that develops and maintains evidence-based practice standards for forensic document examination in...
- PCAST 2016
- President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology 2016 report 'Forensic Science in Criminal Courts', which assessed foundational validity of forensic disciplines...
- SWGDOC
- The Scientific Working Group for Forensic Document Examination (US), which publishes standards for typewriter examination, handwriting comparison, ink analysis, and related forensic...