Private Expert Opinion – Legal Framework and Meaning

The Slovak law on expertness defines an expert opinion, determining who can venture it and how to bring it before the court. Yet, do the courts consider expert opinions as their own? The presented study explores the incentives to commissioning expert opinions and the legal environment of this institute. The community of experts has found flaws in the legislation governing expert opinions, arguing that experts tend to bias their opinion in favour of the client and break the oath they took on behalf of the law. Although the Slovak legislation sets parameters to avoid abuse or defamation of the expert opinion, the judicial practice will show if the degree of acceptance of this opinion is higher than in countries with non-enacted legislation on these opinions despite their wide use in legal proceedings.