Expert scientific evidence under the adversarial system. A travesty of justice?

The procedures for providing courts with expert scientific evidence under the adversarial and inquisitorial systems are reviewed with special reference to the role of the Home Office as the principal purveyor of such evidence at English law. It is suggested that recent advances in technology must lead to increasing interdependence of the various disciplines involved and that the artificial separations which presently exist, notably between forensic pathology and science, are unsatisfactory. Attention is called to the situation in many European countries where medico-legal institutes provide the courts with comprehensive expert scientific services which are non-confrontational and which do not place experts in the position of appearing for one or other of the parties to an action.