On September 3, 2019, the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism issued Circular No. 08/2019/TT-BVHTTDL stipulating the process of judicial expertise for cultural products. This Circular takes effect from November 15, 2019.
Accordingly, this Circular prescribes the judicial expertise process to conclude cultural professional issues for cultural products (except relics, antiques and copyright and related rights domains) according to solicit by procedure-conducting bodies, persons conducting legal proceedings or at the request of persons requesting judicial expertise. As follows:
Step 1: Receive requests, solicit expertise
Judicial experts or judicial expertise organizations shall receive solicitation and request for assessment together with expertised objects, relevant documents and objects (if any) for assessment; In case of ineligibility for expertise, they will refuse according to the provisions of law.
Step 2: Prepare to conduct inspection
The judicial expert or judicial examination organization conducts a study of the solicitation, request and specific provisions of relevant laws in order to prepare for a judicial assessment (at the same time select a supervisor) assessors, assign responsible persons and coordinate the assessment). When it is necessary to clarify contents and objects of assessment, request solicitors or request relevant information and documents. The assessment organization conducts object assessment in the form of collective assessment (the number of expert witnesses must be 3 or more). In case of necessity, the assessor shall organize the taking of test results or other professional conclusions before making an evaluation.
Step 3: Conduct an assessment
Judicial experts shall examine the expertised objects and relevant documents to make professional judgments on the expertised objects on the basis of: reviewing the overall contents of cultural products; Examine the characteristics of shapes, sizes, colors, decorations and other relevant characteristics of cultural products.
For expertises who cannot be moved or are difficult to move, the expert witnesses must organize the examination at the requester’s or solicitor’s place of storage. In this case, the assessment organization must be recorded in a minutes and kept in the expertise file.
Step 4: Draw assessment conclusions
Based on judicial expertise results, test results or other professional conclusions (if any), relevant law provisions or general cultural norms, judicial experts shall conclude on inspection object.
Step 5: Hand over assessment conclusions
When the implementation of judicial expertise is completed, the expert witnesses and the judicial expertise organizations must hand over the expertising conclusions to the solicitors or request for expertise.
Step 6: Set up, keep assessment records
Expert witnesses and judicial expertise organizations shall prepare judicial expertise dossiers for cultural products according to law provisions.