Dialogue with Judiciary

Law and medicine are two important subjects of study which are concerned with the behaviour of the individual in the society and the welfare of the society. From the beginning the law has been concerned with the welfare of the society and psychiatry, a branch of medicine, was more concerned with individual behaviour and its analysis. Law primarily seeks to protect the society from antisocial behaviour, crime and criminals. Psychiatric information often opens the way to understanding the motivation of the crime and thus aids the law in assessing innocence or system of guilt and determining the punishment. Though both the professionals have a common goal in welfare of the society, unless they understand the vast progress made in medical knowledge, changes in the social systems, values system etc. they may not achieve the aim. Further during their learning both the professionals are exposed to two different systems. Medical men are made to understand the human being, his anatomy, physiology, psychiatry etc. which bring the medical people to be more closer to the human being where as a student of law is exposed to laws, criminals, crime and are exposed to punitive, deterrent approach. They avoid intense human relationship, may be coming from different school it is but natural to look the same problem from different angles. It is often felt by both, members of the judiciary and the mental health profession that there lacks the proper understanding or rather empathy between the two. There is also to some degree an overlap into each others territories and role confusion. The judiciary charges medical profession with creating difficulties in the way of administration of justice since the courts rely heavily on medical experts and mental health professionals are no exception. On the other hand the mental health professionals, expecially administrators feel that their bar colleagues are too constraining, narrow in their view point, and fail to see the emotional aspects of any particular case. It is true, feelings and emotions hold very low position or negligible importance in light of physical evidence which a lawyer or judge seeks for. The problem does not end at that since newer issues are cropping up. With the great strides in the advancement of medical sciences the courts have been left far behind to restate the laws in the changing pattern of society. Some of these issues are like artificial insemina-tion, surrogate motherhood, organ donations …