Since the 1970’s, psychologists and psychiatrists have developed
their expertise in providing expert witness services in
civil claims for personal injury and medical negligence. By doing
this, they have helped lawyers and the courts understand
more about diagnosis, causation and prognosis. However,
the relevance of psychology and psychological medicine has a
much wider applicability to the civil justice system.
In Tort Law, the focus is on Justice as the goal, ensuring a more
fair, equitable, holistic and reliable outcome to a personal injury
event. This is in addition to the quantum assessment of
damages and attempts to conduct the process efficiently.
Understanding and measuring ‘justice’ is a challenge due to
its complex multi-dimensional nature. Both claimants and defendants
of claims need to be assured that medico-legal process
goals are balanced fairly with justice goals, making civil
claims more ‘just’ and ‘better’, not just faster and cheaper.
Increasing attention is now being centred on how psychological
and social processes affect civil justice and the way it is
carried out in the UK and other countries, both in Europe and
North America. Starting at the point of a personal injury event such as a road
traffic accident or work accident through to the conclusion
of litigation, there are many psycho-social processes involving
claimants, lawyers, medical experts, barristers and the judiciary
which can affect any one particular case and assessment
of damages.
The main branches of psychology which are applicable to the
medico legal trail.
It is important that both academic and practitioner groups
are active in promoting the understanding of the interface between
Law (and legal systems) and Psychology in the context
of civil cases and litigation, and thereafter to provide education
to legal students and practitioners on these issues. This
collaboration should inform the scientific, medical and psychological
communities on the one hand, and legal communities
on the other, and also the public, about current research
and practice in the area of science and law.
Civil courts admit evidence from health care experts in order
to assess injury and determine quantum. It points to a need
for Law and Psychology to address the use of science, and
both sectors’ narrow constructions of rationality and logicality
which can often have the effect of divorcing science and ‘facts’
from their psychological and social context.
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