The NRGD periodically reviews the Standards of the standardized fields of expertise. Standards evolve in line with developments in science, practice, and the experiences of applicants and assessors.

The Standards for Legal Psychology are established in 2017. Over the past years, this field of expertise has further developed and a considerable number of assessments have taken place. The Board has therefore decided that the Standards need to be revised in certain areas and has implemented a number of changes in consultation with the assessors of this field of expertise. You have until November 6th 2025 at the latest to respond to these changes.

Main changes

Subfield 009.2 – Deception Detection will be discontinued

There is no demand for experts in this subfield, and no experts are registered in this area. Practice shows that questions within this subfield largely overlap with questions in subfield 009.1 – Statement Validity.

Changes to the wording of the requirements stemming from Article 12(2) e and g Brdis

Change to Article 12(2)e Brdis:

“An expert in the field of expertise of Legal Psychology:

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  • must be able to establish if the quality of research material provided by the commissioning party is sufficient to answer the question at hand and when the required information is not provided, the expert refrains from drawing conclusions;
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  • […].”

Changes to Article 12(2)g Brdis:

“An expert in the field of expertise of Legal Psychology:

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  • shall ensure that the analysis and (sub)conclusions provided in the report are clearly and directly supported by scientific evidence; to ensure sufficient scientific embedding, an explicit link should be made between each major element of the analysis and the scientific literature on that specific topic: a general overview of the relevant literature is helpful but not sufficient to meet this requirement;
  • shall explain scientific literature and its application to the analysis at hand in a clear and accessible way that is understandable to triers of fact;
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  • […]
  • […].”

Other changes

  • Several passages included under ‘Demarcation of the field’ have been updated and rewritten.
  • The wording of the requirements has been adjusted to the terminology of ISO Standard 21043 Forensic Sciences.

For completeness, you can download the Standards with the main changes highlighted below. We would appreciate receiving your response no later than November 6th 2025 via deskundigenregister@nrgd.nl, to the attention of Karien van den Doel. The NRGD will take the responses into consideration.