Ministry of Justice civil procedure rules Part 35 - Experts and Assessors (2023)

Key points from the Part 35 Procedure Rules would include:

35.3 Experts – overriding duty to the court

(1) It is the duty of experts to help the court on matters within their expertise.

(2) This duty overrides any obligation to the person from whom experts have received instructions or by whom they are paid.

35.6 (1) to (3) Written questions to experts

A party may put written questions about an expert's report ….. within 28 days of service of the expert’s report ….. an expert’s answers …… shall be treated as part of the expert’s report.

35.10 Contents of report

(1) An expert’s report must comply with the requirements set out in Practice Direction 35.

(2) At the end of an expert’s report there must be a statement that the expert understands and has complied with their duty to the court.

(3) The expert’s report must state the substance of all material instructions, whether written or oral, on the basis of which the report was written.

35.11 Use by one party of expert’s report disclosed by another

Where a party has disclosed an expert’s report, any party may use that expert’s report as evidence at the trial.

35.12 Discussions between experts

(1) The court may, at any stage, direct a discussion between experts for the purpose of requiring the experts to –

(a) identify and discuss the expert issues in the proceedings; and

(b) where possible, reach an agreed opinion on those issues.

(2) The court may specify the issues which the experts must discuss.

(3) The court may direct that following a discussion between the experts they must prepare a statement for the court setting out those issues on which –

(a) they agree; and

(b) they disagree, with a summary of their reasons for disagreeing.