A New Era in the Appointment of Experts by Letters Rogatory

Department of Expert Witnesses, opinion letter dated 12.01.2026

The opinion letter answers a question frequently encountered in practice; may a court that has an active expert in the relevant field on its own regional list appoint an expert from another regional list by letters rogatory? The concrete case concerned requests from other judicial districts asking for the appointment of a retired Court of Accounts auditor; most of them contained no expert name, no scope of examination and no question to be answered.

• Experts are not appointed by professional title; the criterion is the fields of expertise determined by the Department and the regional board lists.
• Priority lies with the court’s own regional list; Article 12 of Law No. 6754 and Article 64 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are mandatory on this point.
• Where letters rogatory are used, the trial court itself designates the expert and, under Article 51 of the Regulation, writes the scope of the task and the questions clearly into the rogatory documents.
• With the UYAP update, the power of the requested court to select and appoint an expert has been removed.

Two notes are in order. First, the Department reminds us that it cannot issue instructions to judicial authorities; yet the UYAP update removes the same power at software level. Having the limits of judicial discretion drawn by system design rather than by statute or case law is in itself a procedural issue that deserves debate. Second, the defence gains a concrete means of control; in reports obtained by letters rogatory, whether the trial court designated the expert and wrote down the scope and the questions can now be questioned. The absence of these elements is a serious ground for a procedural objection to the report being relied on in the judgment. This is particularly important for rogatory reports in tax evasion trials.