Clear charging standards for judicial expertise required

A LAWYER FROM CHENGDU in Southwest China's Sichuan province has revealed on his micro blog that the cost of the judicial expertise for a case, which involved checking a signature, a fingerprint and two stamps, was 170,000 yuan ($24,767). The judicial expertise agency responded that it followed a national charging regulation. However, that regulation was abolished last May. Lao Yue, a retired prosecutor, commented on Beijing News:

When the incident was reported by media outlets, the judicial expertise agency said that there is no new regulation yet so it followed the old one. This is a poor defense because as soon as a regulation is abolished, it is no longer law and cannot be quoted as legal support for any actions.

Actually, ever since it was jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Justice in 2009, the old regulation has been blamed for setting too high charging standards. According to the regulation, the price of judicial expertise was set as a certain percentage of the claim; but many argued that the cost of judicial expertise has nothing to do with how much money is involved in a judicial case. The judicial experts spend the same time and energy identifying each signature and fingerprint, no matter how big a deal it involves.