16 Mar unrepeatable technical assessment

The public prosecutor being the person in charge of the investigations, if you need to carry out checks that require specific skills, he is allowed to make use of technical consultants who can provide specialist contributions in order to contribute to the investigative activity.

During the preliminary investigations, the public prosecutor may need to carry out acts that require particular technical skills. Then, the code recognizes two paths for the public prosecutor: or request the evidentiary incident for an appraisal (art. 392 del c.p.p.) or carry out technical checks in accordance with the articles. 359, 359 to e 360 c.p.p.

In such cases, he p.m.. can make use of consultants, who cannot refuse their work and who can be authorized to assist in individual investigative acts.
Technical consultants are called upon to offer contributions of a technical-scientific nature, intended to fill the inevitable cognitive gaps of the magistrate, specialized in a completely different field.
Enter the art. 359 of the c.p.p. governs the hypothesis of repeatable technical assessment (or, what can be accomplished again in the course of the judgment), art. 360 c.p.p. takes into consideration the unrepeatable technical assessment: that is, the assessment concerning people, things or places whose state is subject to change.

Since these are unrepeatable acts which are destined to acquire probative value in the subsequent judgement, under subsection 1, the public prosecutor must notify, without delay, the suspect, the offended person and their respective defenders.
The notice contains the indication of the day, of the time and place set for the assignment of the task and the right to appoint technical consultants.
The paragraph 2 specifies that the art. applies. 364, comma 2 c.p.p.: then, the suspect without a lawyer is also informed that he is assisted by a public defender, but who can appoint someone he trusts.
The paragraph 3 establishes that the defenders and technical consultants appointed if necessary have the right to be present at the assignment of the assignment, as well as the right to participate in investigations and to formulate observations and reservations.
Moreover, the new paragraph 3-bis (introduced by the Cartabia reform, d.lgs. n. 150 of the 2022) provides that the public prosecutor can authorize the suspect, the offended person, any defenders and technical consultants appointed, who request it, to participate remotely in the assignment of the assignment or the assessment.

Pursuant to the paragraph 4, before the assignment of the assignment, the suspect may reserve the right to initiate an evidentiary hearing.
If the suspect presents the reservation of evidentiary incident, the public prosecutor cannot proceed with the unrepeatable technical assessment but must wait for the suspect to submit the request for an evidentiary hearing. This is unless the technical assessment, if deferred, can no longer be usefully accomplished: only in this last case, the public prosecutor can still proceed.
Anyway, paragraph 4-bis specifies that the evidentiary incident reserve loses effectiveness and cannot be presented again if the request for evidentiary incident is not proposed within ten days from the formulation of the reservation itself.
For the paragraph 5, except in the case of loss of effectiveness of the evidentiary incident reserve (comma 4-bis), if the public prosecutor still decided to proceed with the technical investigation despite the express reservation formulated by the suspect and even if the act was deferrable, the related results cannot be used in the hearing.