Problems of Verification and Evaluation of Expert Psychological Reports by Courts in Family Disputes

The article is devoted to the analysis of systemic contradictions that arise when using in court the conclusion of experts who conducted a commission forensic psychological examination in disputes on determining the place of residence and the order of communication with a child. The authors show that the fundamental discrepancy between the hermeneutic nature of psychological expert knowledge, which requires the interpretation of subjective meanings, and the rigid framework of the adversarial procedural model leads to a functional distortion of the role of the expert’s conclusion as evidence. From a means of establishing circumstances that are significant for a child’s interests, it is increasingly being transformed into a strategic resource in the struggle between the parties. The analysis of practice has allowed us to identify several key problems: the instrumentalization of the category of “child’s interests”; the decline in the professionalism of experts due to emotional burnout; procedural anomalies in the situation of opposing expert opinions; the devaluation of the collegial work of experts during the interrogation of only one member of the commission, due to the court’s desire to avoid cognitive load when evaluating the expert opinion. The conclusions are made about the need for cooperation between the parties in the conditions of the court’s search for the optimal solution for the child; the improvement of the qualifications of judges who consider family disputes; and the implementation of systematic work to develop the culture of legal proceedings.