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Filipino Gov't Loses Court Case Because It Relied On Wikipedia
from the but-was-the-info-accurate? dept
A few years back, we discussed whether or not it was appropriate for judges to cite Wikipedia, noting that some were against the idea. Now, Slashdot points us to a case over in the Philippines, where the Filipino government has lost a recent lawsuit, in large part due to relying on Wikipedia to counter claims, rather than bringing in an expert witness.
However, what's odd, is that the judge in the case seems upset about the use of Wikipedia itself, with no specific attempt to determine if the citation was accurate or credible. It appears that the government was really using Wikipedia to call up the infamous psychologists' bible DSM-IV, in order to explore whether or not one of the participants in the case had a real personality disorder. While citing Wikipedia might not be the wisest of decisions, it still seems a bit harsh to dismiss it entirely because of the source, without any effort to determine if the content itself was legitimate.
However, what's odd, is that the judge in the case seems upset about the use of Wikipedia itself, with no specific attempt to determine if the citation was accurate or credible. It appears that the government was really using Wikipedia to call up the infamous psychologists' bible DSM-IV, in order to explore whether or not one of the participants in the case had a real personality disorder. While citing Wikipedia might not be the wisest of decisions, it still seems a bit harsh to dismiss it entirely because of the source, without any effort to determine if the content itself was legitimate.
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Wikipedia
lol
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Would a medical manual excerpt have been treated differently?
The judge seems more upset by the laziness of the OSG in failing to produce a real expert witness than by the particular source cited. If the OSG had done another whole 30 seconds of "research" online and had quoted a more authoritative source, I'm not sure the results would have been much better.
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As for dismissing because of the source, the source was discredited in big bold letters by their own disclaimer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer
Because of this, anything on Wikipedia is and should be basically on the same level of "hearsay" as far as courts are concerned and dismissed out of hand.
It’s not the courts job to investigate if the content is legitimate, it’s the prosecuting/defending parties job to prove to the judge that it is and that disclaimer (even without knowledge of how Wikipedia works) makes that impossible.
Wikipedia can be a starting point for research/investigation but if you are going to use the information, dig deeper and go direct to the sources
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Wikipedia is not a source
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In psychology, a lot of things are a matter of scale; Anyone remember the slashdot incident where every poster thought they had asperger's from the symptoms list?
In this case, i would think you would certainly need an expert witness to recognize which symptoms the patient actually displays to the extent intended by the DSM-IV
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"seeking to impeach the testimony of a defendant's expert"
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Next...
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That's what expert witnesses are for, Mike. Without an expert witness all you have here is the Filipino government citing a website (which anyone can edit) which is in turn citing the DSM which is aimed at experts in psychology who interpret the text and apply it to specific cases as they see fit. Wikipedia is no substitute for an expert witness, and it's not even a primary source. The use of Wikipedia in a court of law is therefore entirely inappropriate.
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It doesn't matter who makes the claims, it's their evidence that matters.
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