She is completing a thesis on the evolution of the role of forensic psychiatrists in sexual violence cases in Europe. As regards criminal matters the entire penal process tends to the discovery of what should be called Judicial Truth. Each of the parties at the trial, each of the actors of the judicial and penal system, offers elements enabling the reconstruction of the circumstances — not always of reality but of a reality, not of the truth, but of a truth : the judicial truth, which, once the penal process has been completed, will be considered as authoritative.
However, to be able to judge, one must ask oneself questions, investigate, research, and piece the facts together to understand. That is the work asked of the multiple actors of the penal and judicial process.
For the revelation or finding of facts at the criminal trial, all the professionals of the judicial system act or interact with the same aim in mind : recompose the facts, explain the reality, and render justice in the name of truth.
The meaning and the scope of the criminal trial have undergone a notable ideological evolution. For the contemporary justice system, establishing the truth of a crime is no longer just determining its author and applying a legal sanction, but also understanding the motives of the crime in order to better supervise the deviant.
The advent of psychiatry and psychology has enabled experts of the discipline to bring key elements into the explanation of facts and their judicial treatment, elements which had until recently been lacking. Whatever the national procedure studied, the evolution of the missions assigned to psychiatric and psychological experts raises the question of the very nature of expertise, its legal qualification is it becoming evidence?
