Judicial Accounting Expert Opinion And Its Cross-examination In Civil Procedure

Judicial accounting is a new field for development in the 21st century. It is an edge discipline connecting accounting and law. As one of the Judicial accounting activities, Judicial accounting expertise mainly refers to the expertise about special issues by Judicial accounting experts. Judicial accounting expert opinion is a conclusive opinion through scientific identification, analysis and judgment conducted by identifiers on financial accounting issues. Although this kind of conclusion is a kind of legal evidence, it has no authority by itself and must be proved through cross-examination in civil action in court. As an important link of the right procedure, cross-examination plays a crucial role in ensuring the fairness of action. Due to the incompleteness the existing law of China, there are still many problems with the cross-examination on Judicial accounting expert opinion in civil action. It is easily regarded as a matter of form, which brings difficulty to the judge in certification of Judicial accounting expert opinion. The author is endeavoring to analyze the Judicial accounting expert opinion and its cross-examination issues from the point view of civil action, study the current status and exiting problems and suggest the solutions to improve the cross-examination of Judicial accounting expert opinion.The whole essay is divided to 3 parts, with a total 38000 words.Part 1 is an overview of Judicial accounting expertise, mainly covering its concept, contents and application in civil action. This part points out Judicial accounting expertise mostly involves business disputes and cases concerning business contracts in civil action, which is different from forensic accounting and audit. And then it introduces its concept, classification, nature, the source and property of evidence. This part points out its unique characteristics are different from other types of expert opinion and its evidence mainly comes from financial accounting data, analyzes the cross-examination regulations about the opinions of Judicial accounting experts in the United States and Australia.Part 2 introduces the main body and principles followed in the cross-examination of Judicial accounting expert opinion in civil action, clarifies the current status in China and existing problems such as the poor situation of identifier appearing in court, ineffective implementation of"Expert Assistant"system, cross-examination just becoming a matter of form, lack of technical codes and standards about the Judicial accounting expertise etc.Part 3 gives thinking in six angles about how to improve the cross-examination of Judicial accounting expert opinion in civil action. These six angles include reviewing the competency of the conclusion through the form and essence of cross-examination, improving the system of identifier appearing in court and announcing the conclusion in court, perfecting the system of"Expert Assistant"and cross-examination in court etc.Part 2 and Part 3 are center and core of the essay. This essay believes Judicial accounting expert opinion can only ensure its truthfulness and objectivity through strict cross-examination and then be adopted as evidence of the judge in court.