Psychological and Psychiatric Examination of Juvenile Victims in Sexual Offence Cases

Comprehensive forensic psychological and psychiatric examination of the victims plays an important role in the investigation and hearing of cases involving sexual offences against minors in court. According to the authors, the state of the expert practice in this category of cases does not always meet the needs of the investigation and trial. Courts tend to trust the experts' opinions and not always evaluate the validity of the expert conclusions on the merits, ignoring the inconsistency of these findings to other evidence collected in the case. To change the situation, the authors offer the following measures. To expand the range of issues that may be raised before experts in the investigation of sexual crimes against minors taking into account the achievements of victimology and legal psychology on the features of psychological consequences caused by sexual violence experienced by children To identify the range of issues that are expedient to be set before experts in the appointment of the examination at the stage of criminal proceedings To give expert psychiatrists and psychologists the right to independently interview witnesses for information about life and upbringing of the survivor. In so doing, to criminalize the experts for deliberate distortion of information received from witnesses. To recognize the admissibility of formulating alternative probable experts conclusions The need to formulate alternative conclusions would prompt experts to nominate not one but several expert hypotheses, analyze the facts supporting and refuting each of these hypotheses. Such a practice would dramatically reduce the number of expert errors subject to distortion of the internal persuasion expert With the development of the legal regulation on the provision of comprehensive forensic psychological and psychiatric examination of juvenile victims in sexual offence cases and methods of the specified examinations, it is advisable to rely on international legal standards and the experience of foreign countries.

criminal procedural law, comprehensive forensic psychological and psychiatric examination, forensic psychiatric examination, sexual offences, juvenile victims, expert errors, expert conclusions, pre-investigation check

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