The first time I met Connie in the admitting department of Whitby Psychiatric Hospital she looked sad. Connie was a 25 years old single mother. When she showed me the picture of Celine, her four years old daughter, she had tears in her eyes. She had been depressed for the last few months because Children Aids Society [CAS] of Quebec was refusing to give Celine back to her.

When I asked the details I found out that Connie used to struggle with drug addiction when she was in Montreal. Before going to a Drug Rehab Program she took her daughter to CAS and asked them to look after her while she received her treatment. When they gave her papers to sign she did, as she wanted to cooperate with the authorities. After a few weeks of treatment when she was discharged from the Rehab Program she went back to CAS to get her daughter but they turned her down telling her that she had given them permanent custody. At that time she discovered that she was deceived when she signed the papers in French. She thought she was signing temporary custody but in reality she had signed permanent custody and CAS had declared her an unfit and incompetent mother.

Connie had moved to Ontario to be with her cousin who was very supportive of her. When Connie asked my help I wrote a letter to the judge in Montreal asking him to transfer her daughter to Ontario so that she could fight her case here. The judge honored my request and transferred Celine’s case to CAS in Ontario. Connie applied to Oshawa Court to get her daughter back but CAS refused to give her the daughter.

          One day I received a call from Connie’s lawyer to discuss her case. I had sent him a letter of support. He thanked me for the letter but told me that CAS is very strong and will not give her the daughter. He told me that the only hope was if I appeared in the court personally and fought for my patient and convinced the judge. His request inspired me to go to the court. There was a time as a teenager when I had a dream of becoming a lawyer. I thought I could fulfill that dream for one day and also become an advocate for my patient.

          So I went to the court one afternoon and was kept on the stand for three hours. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

          The case started with an ethical dilemma. When I refused to put my hand on the Bible the judge asked me if I wanted Holy Quran to take an oath, I said, “I neither believe in Bible nor Quran because I am a humanist.”

‘What is sacred for you?”

“My conscience” I answered.

“ So take an oath on your conscience.” And I did.

That afternoon I was interrogated by three lawyers, Connie’s lawyer, Celine’s lawyer and most of all CAS lawyer, Ms Fergusan, who was brutal with me. She started challenging me by a question,

“ Dr Sohail, you are supporting a child in this case. Do you have any children of your own?’

I kept quiet for a few seconds, became thoughtful and then said, “As a single man all I can say is I hope not”

The judge got the hint and smiled.

CAS lawyer was trying to make a point that Connie was a drug addict and had just came out of Rehab Program and could not be trusted as a mother. My position was that she was a responsible woman who got professional help and was motivated to be a good mother and we had to offer her all the support she needed. I believed that a sympathetic approach would be more effective than punitive approach and we should not punish her by taking her daughter away from her.

When Ms Fergusan criticized my patient for not attending some of her appointments I reacted strongly. I said,

“You are unfair. For middle class professionals to buy 2 dollars ticket might not be an issue but for a woman who is a single mother, 2 dollars for one-way bus ticket is a lot of money. She gets 540 dollars from Social Services, out of which she pays 440 dollars rent, and from the rest 100 dollars she has to buy food and clothes for herself and her daughter. Social Services would not give her money for her bus fare. So we need to be careful before we criticize Connie.

When Ms Fergusan accused me of being irresponsible by transferring the girl from Quebec to Ontario, the judge stopped her and said, “I usually keep quite but I have to talk. Ms Fergusan, It was not Dr Sohail who transferred Celine to Ontario. It was done by the judge’s order from Montreal. Dr Sohail just requested the judge and judge accepted his recommendation. Dr Sohail did what any good psychiatrist would do for his patient”

At the end of the day the judge agreed with me and accepted my recommendation and ordered the little girl to be given back to the mother. I was quite pleased when my patient thanked me and her lawyer told me that he would not have won the case without me. The only person who was in a bad mood was Ms Ferguson. That day I proved to myself that I would have been a good lawyer if I chose that profession. Fighting for human rights for the underdogs has been my lifelong passion as a poet, humanist and a psychotherapist.