In a competency hearing, the people alleging incompetence will generally hire their own psychiatrist or psychologist, who is generally given an opportunity to do a clinical evaluation of the person in question, but that individual, if possessing any common sense, will seek out a psychiatrist or psychologist to do an evaluation and testify on the individual's behalf. The court may appoint some who work for neither side and hear testimony from them as well.
Psychiatrists should not be in charge of competency hearings in general because their practice is not rooted in the legal system's tradition of rights, equal treatment, due process, etc. More to the point, it would be a spectacularly bad idea to put them in charge of competency hearings that revolved around the right to refuse psychiatric treatment, because they have a conflict of interest. How likely is a psychiatrist to decide that someone choosing to turn down psychiatric services that the psychiatrist believes they need is a person who is making a competent decision?
It's sort of like if your employer provided the only grievance committee that you could go to if you think they fired you without adequate cause. We, the grievance committee, composed of the same people who just fired you, have considered your situation and after due deliberation have determined that we handled your employment situation correctly. Or your insurance company allowing you to appeal to them if they refused your insurance claim. Well, we reviewed your claim and we find that we were right the first time we said your claim isn't valid.
Original SDMB thread - Dear Sister, please take your lithium
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