In this article, the author continues his series of publications devoted to the problems of evidence in pre-trial proceedings in a criminal case. The article considers one of the most controversial procedural ways to establish circumstances that are important for a criminal case – judicial examination. Draws attention to a serious procedural feature of an expert, reminding not so much the rights of participants of criminal proceedings considered in Chapter 8 (Criminal procedure code) of the Russian Federation, as the jurisdictional powers of the bodies of preliminary investigation and trial. The author believes that the opportunity given to the expert to assess the actual quality of the research objects and their total adequacy to formulate certain conclusions compare him to a scientific judge. The author examines in detail the reasons that encouraged the scientists to abandon the idea of an expert as a scientific judge, and comes to the conclusion that they are wrong and farfetched. This allows us to think about changes in the doctrinal and legislative approaches to the role of an expert as a subject of evidence in criminal proceedings, namely, the prospects for granting him the authority to establish certain factual circumstances through the use of special knowledge. At the same time, attention is drawn to the fact that the proposed innovations will inevitably require undamentally different approaches to the training of judicial experts, to their training and education as highly professional subjects with an appro-priate level of legal awareness, legal understanding and responsibility for the results of research and conclusions.