Forensic Examination at the Forefront of Attempts to Tackle Today’s Challenges

Key conclusions

Securing forensic results is a priority for any country’s safety 

“In various normative legal acts our state specifies that the issues related to information security are essential for the very existence of Russia. It means that protection of Russia's information space is indeed one of the priority areas of national security. <...> [It is necessary – Ed.] to counteract destructive phenomena with various approaches, technologies and, above all, with the use of special knowledge in the field of forensic expertise,” Elena Galyashina, Director, Center for Legal Expertise in the Sphere of Counteracting the Ideology of Terrorism and Prevention of Extremism; Professor of the Department of Forensic Examinations, Moscow State Law University named after O.E. Kutafin (MSUA).

“Currently, there is a significant interest in the expert activity associated with the constant development of innovative technologies, which stimulates the improvement of criminal activity and its transition online. The Center of Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Justice of Kazakhstan and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are already switching to an electronic format, this is our platform. From the moment the decision to appoint expertise is made, everything will now be carried out electronically. Today, we are examining the pros and cons,” Kaliolla Seitenov, First Vice-Rector, Law Enforcement Academy under the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Forensic expertise has great potential 

“Our domestic scientists continue their important work developing new types of forensic examinations. And molecular genetic expertise has improved considerably. <...> The result was the law on universal genomic registration, which is now under consideration in the legislative bodies. New ways of coding the DNA were developed. The Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics worked very well,” Farit Aminev, Professor of the Department of Criminalistics and Local Law, Institute of Law of the Institution of Higher Education “Bashkir State University”.

“The management of the Ministry [of Justice of the Russian Federation – Ed.] is making tremendous efforts to move the forensic institutions of the Russian Ministry of Justice to a fundamentally new level. Particular attention is being paid to developing new areas of forensic expertise, improving the quality management system, and creating a multilevel educational activity in the field of forensic expertise at the Russian Legal Academy,” Georgiy Omelyanyuk, Deputy Director, Russian Federal Center for Forensic Science of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.

PROBLEMS

Difficulties identifying threats in the cyberspace

“All the information at our disposal shows that the threats are very complex, polymodal in nature. Our users today can work in different messengers at the same time. Despite the fact that the state acknowledges the dangers and bans organizations with clearly terrorist or extremist accounts, nevertheless there is veiling and disguising of this type of content, which does not allow them to be immediately and unambiguously classified as extremist or terrorist. They may mimic various youth trends or cultural aspects,” Elena Galyashina Director, Center for Legal Expertise in the Sphere of Counteracting the Ideology of Terrorism and Prevention of Extremism; Professor of the Department of Forensic Examinations, Moscow State Law University named after O.E. Kutafin (MSUA).

“Because of its geopolitical location, Kazakhstan finds itself in the middle of the fight against such global threats as extremism and terrorism, drug and weapons trafficking, cybercrime and human trafficking. These and other types of threats are also common to four neighboring states: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. It requires law enforcement agencies to cooperate,” Kaliolla Seitenov, First Vice-Rector, Law Enforcement Academy under the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Lack of a unified forensic system 

“The approach we have today consists of disparate examinations: a linguist examines the verbal component, other specialists like psychologists, political scientists, religious scholars are invited to identify destructive or illegal content. Even if a comprehensive examination is appointed, there is a huge problem of combining knowledge in relation to this complex multicode object. Everyone examines their part, everyone applies their knowledge in one area or another, but there is no integrative analysis of the product as a whole. And in practice it happens that a psychologist says one thing and a linguist says another, and as a result we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot evaluate this object, this information product,” Elena Galyashina Director, Center for Legal Expertise in the Sphere of Counteracting the Ideology of Terrorism and Prevention of Extremism; Professor of the Department of Forensic Examinations, Moscow State Law University named after O.E. Kutafin (MSUA). 

SOLUTIONS

Improve the level of forensic experts 

“I would like to tell you about a new scientific and educational project that we have begun to implement at our university. One of our priority areas is forensic expertise. We have created a specialized department for it. We believe this will be a unique department, because it will bring together both the practitioners from the Russian Federal Center of Forensic Examinations and the leading theorists and lawyers who specialize in this field,” Vladimir Gureev, Vice-Rector for Science, Head of the Department, Professor of the Department of Civil Procedure and Organization of the Bailiff Service, All-Russian State University of Justice (RPA of the Ministry of Justice of Russia).

“Today we have 21 retraining programmes for experts and more than 200 programmes of professional development. Practically every two years, when a new expertise type appears or a subspecies of forensic expertise is allocated, the confirmation of qualification in court, in law enforcement agencies, the specialist is required to have the appropriate documentation. Therefore, the institute quickly develops the necessary documentation, the educational standard, and the retraining begins,” Irena Lapina, Professor of the Department of Forensic Examinations, Institute for Advanced Studies and Retraining of Personnel of the State Committee for Forensic Examinations of the Republic of Belarus.

Creating a forensic system 

“It seems to me that today it is time to distinguish an expertise of an information product as a special kind, or an expertise of a complex type. We do so by involving different specialists, depending on the focus, the target audience, and the content. Not just linguistic or psychological expertise on their own, it should be expertise of the information product as a whole. This process should be carried out comprehensively, in a commission, with the involvement of specialists of different specialties,” Elena Galyashina, Director, Center for Legal Expertise in the Sphere of Counteracting the Ideology of Terrorism and Prevention of Extremism; Professor of the Department of Forensic Examinations, Moscow State Law University named after O.E. Kutafin (MSUA).

“Creation of a single state body related to forensic expertise is a response of the Republic of Belarus to a certain social order. Among other things, it is connected with the establishment of paternity. Those were very complicated, time-consuming expert examinations. Now it is all done in two weeks at the request of citizens or by a court order. The responsibility of the state forensic expert for the conclusion he renders, is extremely high, compared to other possible lab examinations,” Irena Lapina Professor of the Department of Forensic Examinations, Institute for Advanced Studies and Retraining of Personnel of the State Committee for Forensic Examinations of the Republic of Belarus. 

For more information, visit the Roscongress Foundation’s Information and Analytical System roscongress.org.

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