Member, Social Security Appeals Tribunal President, Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry,

become integral to the prosecution and defence of homicide charges but that so many fetters and limitations — legal, practical and pecuniary— circumscribe what can be offered by the expert witness in this role. The reduction of legal aid funding is reducing the use of mental health professionals in all contexts in the legal system. Australasian forensic psychiatrists still have no code of ethics specific to them as a branch of psychiatry, although the American Association of Psychiatry and Law formulated such a code some years ago. Training in legal issues for psychiatrists remains minimal in most jurisdictions in Australia and New Zealand and, on the other side of the coin, lawyers are disturbingly ignorant about the potentials and limitations of forensic psychiatry as a discipline (see, for similar comments, Kreiling 1990). At a legal level, the law on determination of fitness to plead remains shrouded in uncertainties, and the common law rules of expert evidence substantially reduce the testimony that may be given by psychiatrists. This paper will concentrate upon the uncomfortable position occupied by forensic psychiatry in the anterooms of the courts and in the courts themselves as a result of the contemporary problems faced by psychiatrists who find themselves involved in the legal process. It suggests that the relationship between the law and psychiatry is one of host and unwelcome but obligatory guest. No expert witnesses are more mistrusted than those said to be unable to provide hard data, and yet lawyers have done little to educate themselves as to what forensic psychiatry can and cannot offer them