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A new appraisal of Mental Health Review Tribunals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

A. T. Grounds
A. T. Grounds*
Affiliation:
Institute of Criminology and Department of Psychiatry, 7 West Road, Cambridge
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Mental Health Review Tribunals were introduced in the Mental Health Act (1959) to safeguard psychiatric patients against unjustified detention in hospital. The powers of tribunals form “an important part of the fabric of civil liberties” (Wood, 1974). However, in exercising their prime function of preventing unjust detention, tribunals in practice also have to take into account patients' clinical needs and the protection of the public. Further weight was added to this complex burden of decision making following a judgement by the European Court of Human Rights in 1981 which upheld the right of all detained patients to a periodic judicial review of their detention. As a result of this judgement the Mental Health Act (1983) extended tribunal powers to include the release of offender patients sentenced by Crown courts and given hospital orders with restrictions on discharge. Such individuals may have been convicted of grave criminal offences, and their discharge or transfer from hospital would otherwise require the consent of the Home Office.

Type
Articles
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 13 , Issue 6 , June 1989 , pp. 299 - 300
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989

References

Hepworth, D. (1985) Dangerousness and the Mental Health Review Tribunal. In Aggression and Dangerousness (eds. D. P. Farrington & J. Gunn). Chichester: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Peay, J. (1984) Mental Health Review Tribunals and the Mental Health (Amendment) Act. Criminal Law Review,794–808.Google Scholar
Wood, J. C. (1974) Mental Health Review Tribunals: a reappraisal. Medicine, Science and the Law, 16, 212–218.Google Scholar
Wood, J. C. (1985) Detention of patients: administrative problems facing Mental Health Review Tribunals. In Psychiatry, Human Rights and the Law (eds. M. Roth & R. Bluglass). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
X v. United Kingdom Application No 6998/75 European Court of Human Rights, judgement given 5 November 1981. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.Google Scholar
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