Engineering in the Service of Law

Abstract

The professional duty of the civil engineer is not limited exclusively to the scope of project design and execution; it often embraces other very different fields of activity as well. In this article, we will tackle a very specific task of the civil engineer, which is the collaboration with the Administration of Justice by means of expert opinions or testimonies that relate to specific and specialized scientific contents and subjects of the academic and professional training of the civil engineer. In Spain, incorporating civil engineers into the field of the Administration of Justice poses some questions that need to be resolved and that range from the need to authorize a regulated process that allows for the homogeneous access of professionals to the opportunity to develop additional training programs (university based or not) that train engineers in specific subjects in this field of activity; from the review and improvement of administrative matters that currently make the tasks of the engineer expert more difficult to the definition of the minimum content that the expert study should cover. In this article, we describe current Spanish legislative regulations relevant to this particular field of activity of civil engineering, and we offer some thoughts and suggestions that we feel would help improve the quality of the studies that engineers do for the judicial bodies and, consequently, the quality of service of engineers to society.