І. The rules of criminal proceedings in the territory of Ukraine shall be defined exclusively by the criminal procedure legislation of Ukraine.

Article 242 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine states:

1. The examination shall be conducted by an expert institution, expert, or experts involved by the parties to the criminal proceedings or the investigating judge at the request of the defense in cases and in accordance with the procedure provided for Article 244 of this Code, where special knowledge is required to clarify the circumstances important for criminal proceedings. It is not allowed to conduct expert examinations for addressing issues related to law.
2. The investigator or public prosecutor shall commit expertise to conduct the examination in respect of:

• establishing causes of death;
• establishing gravity and nature of bodily injuries;
• ascertaining the mental state of the suspect upon the availability of information that casts doubt on his/her sanity or limited capacity;
• ascertaining the age of a person in so far as it is necessary to dispose of the issue relating to his/her criminal liability whenever it is impossible to have such information otherwise;
• determination of the amount of pecuniary damages, where the victim cannot determine them and has not provided a document confirming the amount of such damage, the amount of non-pecuniary damage, and environmental damage caused by a criminal offense.

3. Compulsory conduct of medical or psychiatric expertise examination shall be undertaken upon investigating the judge’s or court’s ruling.

Article 243 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine states:

1. An expert shall be involved where there are grounds for conducting an examination on behalf of a party to the criminal proceedings.
2. The defense party shall have the right to engage experts on a contractual basis to conduct an examination, including the mandatory one.
3. An expert may be engaged by the investigating judge at the request of the defense in cases and in the manner prescribed by Article 244 hereof.

ІІ.  The Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine determines the jurisdiction and powers of general courts in civil disputes and other cases stipulated by this Code and establishes the procedure for civil proceedings.

Article 105 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine states:

The appointment of an expert examination by a court shall be obligatory in the case of a petition for the appointment of an expert examination by both parties. The appointment of an examination by a court shall also be mandatory at the request of at least one of the parties if the case requires the establishment of the following:

• the nature and degree of damage to health;
• the mental condition of the person;
•  the age of the person, if there are no relevant documents, and it is impossible to obtain them.

Article 106 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine states:

1. A case party shall have the right to submit to the court an expert conclusion drawn up at his/her request.

2. The procedure for conducting the expert examination and drawing up the expert conclusions based on the results of the conducted expert examination shall be determined under the current legislation of Ukraine on conducting forensic expert examinations.

3. The expert conclusion based on the expert examination results, during which the object of examination, which is evidence in the case, was completely or partially destroyed, or its properties were changed, shall not replace the evidence itself and shall not be grounds for exemption from the burden of proof.

4. The expert conclusion based on the expert examination results, during which the object of examination was completely or partially destroyed, or its properties changed, shall not be considered by the court, except in cases when the person submitting it proves the possibility of additional and repeated expert examination on the issues investigated in the expert conclusion.

5. The expert conclusion shall state that the conclusion has been prepared for submission to the court and that the expert is aware of the criminal responsibility for a knowingly false conclusion.

6. An expert who has drawn up a conclusion on the application of a case party shall have the same rights and obligations as an expert who carries out the expert examination on the basis of a court ruling.

7. Upon the case party’s application on the existence of grounds for dismissal of the expert who prepared the conclusion on behalf of another person, such a conclusion shall not be accepted by the court for consideration if the court recognizes the existence of such grounds.

ІІІ. The legal, organizational, and financial principles of judicial examination activity are defined by the Law of Ukraine “On Forensic Examination”.

Article 7 of the Law of Ukraine “On Forensic Examination” states:

1. Forensic activities that are part of forensic psychiatric examinations are carried out exclusively by specialized state institutions.
2. These specialized state institutions are the forensic psychiatric institutions of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.

Article 15 of the Law of Ukraine “On Forensic Examination” states:

1. Forensic examinations in criminal proceedings, carried out by specialized institutions at the request of the investigator, coroner, prosecutor, and court, as well as the examinations in cases on administrative offenses, are paid from the funds allocated for this purpose in the State Budget of Ukraine.
2. Forensic examinations, check-ups,  and studies in criminal proceedings carried out by specialized institutions at the request of the suspects, accused, convicted, acquitted, their defenders, legal representatives, victims, or their representatives, are paid at the expense of the petitioner.

ІV. The forensic psychiatric examination procedure (hereafter FPsE) is approved by the Order of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine of 8 May 2018 №865:

1. When required and in compliance with Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine “On Forensic Examination”, FPsE may be conducted at the location of the person for whom the SPE is appointed, provided that the expert has full access to this location.
2. The subject of FPsE is the mental condition of a person in a certain legally significant period of time. The mental condition of a person in a certain legally significant period of time is determined in order to provide answers to the questions put by the individual or body that involved the expert, or by the investigating judge or the court that requested the examination.
3. The number of experts (individual or commission) for a particular FPsE shall be determined by the individual or body that involved the expert, or by the investigating judge or the court that requested the examination. When not specified, the above number is determined by the director of the expert institution.
4. The director of the expert institution reviews the received materials and in case they are prepared with violations that exclude any possibility of arranging a FPsE, the director within one day notifies in writing the body (individual) that appointed the FPsE (involved an expert) and gets back the materials provided for the FPsE for further procedural decisions.
5. When required to obtain additional materials, the expert submits a request for additional materials and gets back to the body (individual) that appointed the examination (involved an expert), the materials provided for that examination.
6. The term of an outpatient FPsE is up to 30 working days from the date of receipt of all the required materials. Depending on the complexity of the examination and the scope of its objects submitted for study, this period may be extended by informing the body (individual) that appointed the examination (involved an expert) and at whose request an expert was involved.
7. The term of a postmortem FPsE is up to 60 working days from the date of receipt of all the required materials. Depending on the complexity of the examination and the scope of its objects submitted for FPsE, this period may be extended by informing the body (individual) that appointed the examination (involved an expert) and at whose request an expert was involved.