The new evidence "Conclusion and testimony of a specialist", which appeared in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in 2003, in turn gave rise to both issues related to law enforcement and scientific discussions. Now it can be stated that the novel proposed by the legislator has not found its place in the practice of investigating crimes. The authors of the article have made an attempt to understand the reasons for this situation and offer their own solutions to the problem in a comparative legal way.