Calenda Listing 1,410,808 (excerpts)
Courts are faced with an abundance of sources and data derived from science and expert knowledge: medical and psychiatric expert opinions, DNA analyses, statistics, economic models, climate or epidemiological data, etc. This evidence is not produced within the legal sphere, but in distinct social, scientific, and institutional domains, each with its own standards of validity.
How do the legal system and its actors appropriate the knowledge produced by scientists and experts to transform it into legally admissible evidence? The growing role of scientific evidence involves processes of appropriation by the courts, such as the reclassification of knowledge, strategies for avoiding or prioritizing data—which constitute a central focus of research on evidence at the intersection of law, sociology, and epistemology.
As part of an interdisciplinary Law and Society approach, this conference aims to offer cross-analyses of scientific evidence considered not merely as a technical tool, but as a meeting point between law and society. Scientific evidence indeed appears as a prime lens through which to observe how the law attempts to govern social knowledge, while simultaneously being reshaped by that very knowledge.
Thus, a set of questions relating to both the work of the courts and that of experts will be at the center of this conference:
What knowledge is deemed legitimate, and what knowledge is not recognized as such? What data, sources, and information will serve as evidence at the conclusion of the judicial process? Are certain types of data more likely to be adopted by judges, and why? Is this appropriation of knowledge and expertise by the courts systematized and/or subject to a process of prioritization? Through which channels does it operate (legal doctrine, judicial training, the use of lay judges, media pressure, etc.)? How is the judicial process and its ultimate outcome—the decision—reshaped by the incorporation of scientific data that is sometimes predictive and therefore uncertain? What strategies do legal professionals develop to ensure the law’s normative autonomy? Finally, how do experts and scientists adapt to the constraints of the judicial process? What strategies do they implement to ensure that their evidence is recognized as valid by judges? How do judges attempt to control expert testimony or experts?
