Training of Judicial Experts in Greece in a European Perspective

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by Spyros Mitsialis, judicial expert

Without a Framework, Technical Knowledge Is Not Enough

Current situation

In Greece, the appointment of the judicial expert is made by the court, but the lists from which the court selects are compiled by professional chambers — the Technical Chamber of Greece, Medical Associations, the Economic Chamber, and others depending on the field. These chambers register their members on the lists on the basis of professional qualifications, without any assessment of suitability for the judicial role, without a declaration of active interest, and without training. The system thus provides the court with a name — not a vetted and properly qualified expert.

There is no training structure for the judicial role: neither initial training nor mandatory continuing education, nor certification or accreditation. The Code of Civil Procedure defines the general duties and oath of the expert, but provides no guidance on report methodology, the delineation between the technical and legal domains, or the management of scientific uncertainty. The technical professional — engineer, physician, accountant — is called upon to undertake assignments for which they have not been prepared in their judicial dimension.

Despite the absence of an institutional framework, the system in practice produces competent experts. This occurs through an informal mechanism: some registered experts gradually withdraw due to disinterest or inadequacy, while others, through repeated experience and personal methodological inquiry, develop substantive competence in the judicial role.

This path of individual self-improvement does not constitute a solution. It produces islands of quality within a system that, as a whole, guarantees nothing. What in other European systems is an institutional investment is here shifted as a cost onto the individual. The outcome is uneven and contingent: the litigant has no guarantee that their case will be assigned to a professional who has followed this trajectory. Moreover, knowledge acquired in this way is non-transferable and does not accumulate as institutional capital.

An institution is not judged by its peaks, but by its median. From this perspective, the Greek situation is not equivalent to systems with structured training; it constitutes a form of institutional failure compensated by individual effort.

Experience and self-directed learning are effective for the accumulation of technical competence. They are significantly weaker in three areas where epistemological and institutional maturity is required.

• First, cognitive bias arising from a perception of justice.
  Through technical analysis, the expert often forms an internal judgment as to “who is right.” When this judgment influences the drafting of the expert report — through the selection of emphasized data or linguistic framing — the technical assessment turns into implicit support for one party. The bias is not necessarily conscious; it arises from a conflation of technical and legal evaluation.
• Second, overstepping of competence.
  Technical analysis often requires reference to regulatory frameworks. The problem arises when such reference turns into interpretation or application of the law, frequently in the form of extensive citation of legal provisions that gives the report the appearance of legal analysis. The expert thereby enters a domain that belongs exclusively to the judge, distorting the distinct contribution of expert evidence.
• Third, mismanagement of scientific uncertainty.
  Technical knowledge inherently involves ranges, assumptions, and alternative interpretations. The untrained expert tends either to conceal this uncertainty, producing categorical conclusions without sufficient grounding, or to transfer it unprocessed, without evaluation. In the first case, the result is a “silent technical truth,” an apparent certainty that invites no challenge precisely because it displays no visible fractures. In the second, the result is unstructured information. In both cases, expert evidence fails to transform scientific uncertainty into legally usable knowledge.

Perspectives

The European Guide for Legal Expertise of the European Expertise & Expert Institute establishes a coherent operational framework structured around three axes: competence, independence, and methodological transparency. Competence extends beyond technical knowledge to include understanding of the role. Independence also entails cognitive distance from the outcome of the case. Methodological transparency requires the explicit articulation of assumptions, limits, and uncertainty.

These principles do not constitute an externally imposed standard. They form an institutional pact of responsibility between the court, the expert, and the appointing authority — a distribution of roles that renders expert evidence both reviewable and usable. The Greek divergence does not concern procedures alone; it concerns the absence of this very architecture of responsibility. The three structural risks are direct consequences of that absence.

The objective is not to elevate those who already stand out, but to ensure a common baseline for all participants. In this logic, a minimum training structure could be articulated across three levels:

• Initial training as a condition for registration on the lists, covering the legal nature of the role, the limits of competence face-to-face with the judge, expert report methodology, the management of scientific uncertainty, and the identification of cognitive biases.
• Uniform methodological guidance through a manual or guidelines, so that the structure and qualitative criteria of the expert report do not depend on individual judgment.
• Structured continuing education as a condition for remaining on the lists — not as a mechanism of selection among the best, but as a guarantee of up-to-date competence across the board.

Contemporary learning tools, in particular the use of artificial intelligence for case-based simulation, report analysis, and the identification of cognitive biases, can strengthen this training structure. The direction already set at the European level for the training of judges in artificial intelligence should be extended to experts, as co-participants in the judicial function.

Implementation can be achieved through cooperation between professional chambers and the National School of the Judiciary of Greece. It does not require extensive legislative reform; it requires institutional recognition that training is a condition of the role, not an optional qualification. The proposal does not negate the existing path of experience; it institutionalizes and accelerates it, so that no one has to traverse it alone.

Experience remains irreplaceable. Without a framework, however, it remains private knowledge that does not accumulate. Training is what transforms it into institutional capital. Where this distinction is not understood, the deficit is not technical; it is architectural.

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