China Announces 10 National Judicial Authentication Institutions
China recently designated and announced ten national judicial authentication institutions, as part of its effort to strengthen the nation's judicial authentication administration system in the direction of the Decision on the Administration of Judicial Authentication ("the Decision") promulgated by the Standing Committee of National People's Congress in 2005.
The designation results from a years-long criteria setting and selection process jointly launched by the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Science and Technology and other relevant authorities under the leadership of Ministry of Justice.
The selected national judicial authentication institutions cover the three main types of activities in the field, namely, medico-legal authentication, physical evidences authentication, and audio-visual material authentication. The criteria of selection comprise, among other things, professional expertise, equipment and facilities, capital, and track record of the candidates.
To ensure their sustained quality performance, the institutions chosen are subject to dynamic management through regular inspection and supervision, and those fail to meet the required standards may result in being removed from the national list.
According to the Decision, the authentication opinions issued by the national judicial authentication institutions and those by non-national ones are on equal footing in legal effect, though the national institutions are expected to play an exemplary role in facilitating the resolution of serious and complicated cases in litigation, thereby mitigating the predominant issues of repeated and controversial authentication.
The 10 national judicial authentication institutions are as follows:
Supreme People's Procuratorate Forensic Center
(最高人民檢察院司法鑒定中心)
Institute of Forensic Science, Ministry of Public Security
(公安部物證鑒定中心)
Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau Forensic Center
(北京市公安司法鑒定中心)
Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau Forensic Center
(上海市公安司法鑒定中心)
Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau Forensic Center
(廣東省公安司法鑒定中心)
Beijing Municipal Bureau of State Security Forensic Center
(北京市國家安全局司法鑒定中心)
Center of Forensic Science under Institute of Forensic Science, Ministry of Justice
(司法部司法鑒定科學技術研究所司法鑒定中心)
Fada Institute of Forensic Medicine & Science
(法大法庭科學技術鑒定研究所)
Verification Centre of Forensic Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University
(中山大學法醫鑒定中心)
Forensic Science Center, Southwest University of Political Science and Law
(西南政法大學司法鑒定中心)
