Expert reviews not all correct
China Daily  Updated: 2005-08-30 06:18

It is high time widespread expert panels were regulated, says an article in Beijing News. An excerpt follows:

China Central Television reported that not long before the Daxing coal mine tragedy in southern Guangdong Province, in which about 120 miners died, the coal pit's owners organized an experts panel to review the safety situation, which it concluded was adequate.

This turned out to be a fatal miscalculation.

But a so-called expert panel issuing suspect opinions is not rare. The much-publicized scandal concerning the Yuanmingyuan Park's decision to cover the bed of its lake with an impermeable membrane is a similar case.

An expert panel was convened by the park's administration to assess the project's environmental impact before work began.

The panel gave the go-ahead, a verdict that was incorrect according to a more serious expert panel organized by the State Environmental Protection Administration.

Organizing expert panels has become very popular. But as the above cases show, some reviews are not valid and can be very misleading.

Some organizers of such panel reviews are not really interested in obtaining an objective assessment from experts, but instead use the results as promotional gimmicks.

Some experts, sweetened by handsome payments, only make favourable reviews while being tight-lipped about the negative aspects of projects.

In addition, because many such panel reviews are organized by institutions whose interests are immediately affected by the review results, their objectivity is questionable.

Modern society is so complex that the public must rely on experts in specific fields for authoritative judgements. It is therefore imperative that expert reviews be regulated.

It is recommended that such expert panel reviews be organized by a third- party institution to ensure their fairness. Experts should maintain their social conscience. Unscrupulous experts should be disciplined by social morals, academic ethics or even laws.

(China Daily 08/30/2005 page4)

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