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Hisham Aljundi
Doha
A CROSS SECTION of legal experts has expressed eagerness to see the completion of the draft law that will allow experts in certain fields to witness at courts.
The draft law tagged 'Expert Witnessing' is currently being studied by the Advisory (Shura) Council.
According to the experts, the recent reports of 'dishonesty' and 'bribery' by some experts at the courts necessitated the need for such a law.
The legal practitioners also called for the appointment of permanent competent experts to avoid 'delay' or 'dishonesty' in court cases.
Some of the lawyers who spoke to Qatar Tribune claimed the Supreme Judicial Council has recently expelled a number of accredited experts to witness in courts and referred some of them to the Public Prosecution on the allegation of corruption, dishonesty and lack of cooperation with the judges.
Other reports revealed that some of the accused experts allegedly received bribes which changed the course of some cases, adding that some experts misused their position that is very important to the people and judiciary.
Lawyer Rashid al Saad, member of the Advisory Board of the Qatar Financial Center, said that the experts at courts assist the judges in verifying and ensuring truth in particular cases. He explained that the experts carry out technical examination and inspection of court cases as they have special professional knowledge that judges might not have.
"Some cases such as those on medical, engineering or industrial issues need special technical knowledge that the judge sometimes doesn't have enough competence in. That is when these experts are needed," Lawyer Saad said.
He added that courts selected some experts in certain fields to serve as freelance workers but the selection needs more control about their skill and honesty.
According to him, the Supreme Judicial Council recently revised its lists of experts and rejected some of them, leading to calls to expedite promulgation of the new law to regulate the appointment of the experts due to their high demand for many different cases in courts.
Abdelraouf Buqei, another lawyer and ex-judge, said that, till now, there is lack of law to organise the work of experts and the mechanism or deadlines for delivering their reports.
Lawyer Asmaa Muftah said that some experts have overstepped their bound when studying some cases and acted as if they were judges. She claimed that some of them deal with 'big cases' that are worth millions as partners and demanded percentages as their fees, which leads to certain compromise in their analysis and eventual bribe-taking.
