ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the extent to which wider use of codes of practice could facilitate the evolution of law-expertise relationships whether through enhancing the case-specific approach or through external processes. The code of practice approach is not in conflict with a continued emphasis upon case-specific determination; rather it offers a tool which has shown its utility in managing uncertainties which may be of wider use. The chapter argues that codes produced after public debate provide an opportunity to agree complexity rules for courts, of a kind which has operated successfully in some fields, such as confession and identification evidence. This can produce a socially validated approach which limits the range of options it is necessary to consider in a particular case. Choice theories would suggest that the optimum way for the distinguishing features of a science law system to emerge would be as a product of the thousands of individual decisions reached as to admissibility and weight in individual cases.
