How will your anxiety disorder affect your testimonies in court?

Answer 1

Anxiety, depending upon the severity, can affect the ability to think and act. It will most certainly affect performance. It can affect thinking, concentration and memory. The ability to pose questions and indeed to answer questions will be severely disabled and therefore anyone suffering with anxiety disorders should obtain their doctor's advice if they should attend a court hearing.

For the interests of justice, fair treatment in a court is of paramount importance. As anxiety depending upon severity can affect the ability to recall, think and reply. The court should be aware of this disability.

Anxiety is very little understood by the general public. It is very often misunderstood. It is a very severely debilitating condition. A court, in order to make a just decision, must hear all facts. This disability can severely reduce reliability of the testimony.

The doctor's advice whether someone is fit to attend court to give testimony should be seeked and followed.