A vindication of the rights of psychiatric patients

Journal of Law and Society

Volumn 24, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 235-251

  Cavadino, Michael ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0031156366     PISSN: 0263323X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-6478.00044     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. The Mental Health (Patients in the Community) Act 1995.
2. L. Blom Cooper, H. Hally, and E. Murphy, The Falling Shadow: One Patient's Mental Health Care, 1978-93 (1995)
3. A. Gewirth, Reason and Morality (1978). As will be demonstrated later, this wide definition of 'prospective purposive agent' seems to be the logically correct one, although Gewirth at times operates with a more restricted definition of rights-bearing agents.
4. D. Beyleveld, The Dialectical Necessity of Morality: an Analysis and Defense of Alan Gewirth's Argument to the Principle of Generic Consistency (1991).
5. See, further, M. Cavadino, 'An Examination and Evaluation of English Mental Health Law' (1983) part 4, especially chs. 1 and 7. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sheffield.
6. For some discussions of this aspect of postmodernism, see J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1987); S. Lovibond, 'Feminism and Postmodernism' (1989) 178 New Left Rev. 5-29; and S. Best and D. Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (1991).
7. For some discussions of this aspect of postmodernism, see J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1987); S. Lovibond, 'Feminism and Postmodernism' (1989) 178 New Left Rev. 5-29; and S. Best and D. Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (1991).
8. For some discussions of this aspect of postmodernism, see J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1987); S. Lovibond, 'Feminism and Postmodernism' (1989) 178 New Left Rev. 5-29; and S. Best and D. Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (1991).
9. Discussed by S. Lukes, Marxism and Morality (1985) 61-70.
10. For example, N. Rose, 'Law, Rights and Psychiatry' in The Power of Psychiatry, eds. P. Miller and N. Rose (1986).
11. For example, E. Kingdom, What's Wrong With Rights? Problems for a Feminist Philosophy of Law (1991).
12. See D.A. Price, 'Taking Rights Cynically: a Review of Critical Legal Studies' (1989) 48 Cambridge Law J. 271-301.
13. Here I follow with enthusiasm Lukes (S. Lukes, Individualism (1973)) who distinguishes between different varieties of individualism and argues that taking the core values of individualism seriously necessitates a rejection of conservative philosophies and an espousal of a humane form of socialism.
14. R. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (1978).
15. Rose, op. cit., n. 8, pp. 207-8.
16. id.
17. Gewith, op. cit., n. 3.
18. I. Berlin, 'Two Concepts of Liberty' in I. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (1969).
19. Cavadino, op. cit., n. 5, pp.780-5;M. Cavadino, Mental Health Law in Context: Doctors' Orders? (1989) 139.
20. Cavadino, op. cit., n. 5, pp.780-5;M. Cavadino, Mental Health Law in Context: Doctors' Orders? (1989) 139.
21. Gewirth, op. cit., n. 5, pp. 67.
22. Compare C. Gould, Rethinking Democracy (1988).
23. Compare J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1972) 115.
24. Gewirth, op. cit., n. 3, p. 120.
25. id., p. 122: compare 28, 38,
26. I briefly discuss the principle of positive rights in Cavadino, op. cit., n. 17, pp. 156-8. There has recently been a move in English legislation to enact what might be formally analysable as positive rights to facilities in legislation such as the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, although few observers would regard these 'rights' as either effectively enforceable or adequate to ensure that mentally disordered and other infirm people receive their genuine moral entitlements to satisfactory care. Many critics point to the lack of publicly-funded resources to make these positive rights a reality.
27. id., pp. 38-40.
28. Dworkin, op. cit., n. 12, p. 11.
29. Cavadino, op. cit., n. 17, pp. 99-100.
30. id., pp. 100-102.
31. J. Feinberg, 'Legal Paternalism' in his Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy (1980).
32. In re C. (Adult: Refusal of Treatment) [1994] 1 W.L.R. 290.
33. Cavadino, op. cit., n. 17, chs. 4, 5; M. Cavadino, 'Community Control?' (1991) J. of Social Welfare and Family Law 482-93, at 488-9.
34. Cavadino, op. cit., n. 17, chs. 4, 5; M. Cavadino, 'Community Control?' (1991) J. of Social Welfare and Family Law 482-93, at 488-9.
35. id. (1989), pp. 132-5, 142-4.
36. See, for example, K. Jones, 'The Limitations of the Legal Approach to Mental Health' (1980) 3 International J. of Law and Psychiatry 1-15.
37. An alternative argument, that laws based on professional discretion would be more effective than liberal laws in promoting positive freedom, is considered and rejected in Cavadino, op. cit., n. 17, pp. 142-4.
38. T.S. Szasz, The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (1972); T.S. Szasz, Law, Liberty and Psychiatry (1974).
39. T.S. Szasz, The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (1972); T.S. Szasz, Law, Liberty and Psychiatry (1974).
40. Cavadino, op. cit., n. 17, ch. 4.
41. Rose, op. cit., n. 8.
42. Cavadino, op. cit., n. 17, ch. 12.
43. Rose, op. cit., n. 8, p. 193
44. P. Fennell, 'Law and Psychiatry: The Legal Constitution of the Psychiatric System' (1986) 13 J. of Law and Society 35-65 at 58.
45. L.O. Gostin, 'The Merger of Incompetency and Certification: The Illustration of Unauthorised Medical Contact in the Psychiatric Context' (1979) 2 International J. of Law and Psychiatry 127-69.
46. In cases such as In re C. [1994] 1 W.L.R. 290 and In re T. [1993] Fam. 95.
47. The same section (s. 63) has also been held, remarkably, to permit the imposition of non-psychiatric treatments including force-feeding, induction of labour, and Caesarian section on unwilling detained patients (B. v. Croydon Health Authority [1995] Fam. 133; Tameside and Glossop Acute Services Trust v. C.H. (a patient) [1996] 1 F.L.R. 762).
48. The growing power and influence of these groups can be traced in the complex provisions in the new 'supervised discharge' law requiring consultation with relatives and informal carers, some of them contained in amendments inserted at the specific urging of the NSF and its Parliamentary associates.
49. For example, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Community Supervision Orders (1993).
50. Cavadino, op. cit., n. 17, pp. 158-9; Cavadino, op. cit., n. 30.
51. Cavadino, op. cit., n. 17, pp. 158-9; Cavadino, op. cit., n. 30.
52. See, further, id. (1991).
53. Department of Health, Legal Powers on the Care of Mentally Ill People in the Community: Report of the Internal Review (1993). Community treatment orders were also publicly opposed by the House of Commons Health Committee and the Mental Health Act Commission in mid-1993.
54. Circular HSG(94)5 required the introduction of 'supervision registers' from 1 April 1994. Patients should be included on these registers when discharged from hospital if a review meeting concludes that 'they are suffering from a severe mental illness and are, or are liable to be, at significant risk of committing serious violence or suicide or of severe self-neglect'
55. T.J. Crow, J.F. MacMillan, A.L. Johnson, and E.C. Johnston, 'The Northwick Park Study of First Episodes of Schizophrenia. II. A Controlled Trial of Prophylactic Neuroleptic Treatment' (1986) 148 Brit. J. of Psychiatry 120-7; see Cavadino, op. cit., n. 30, p. 488.
56. T.J. Crow, J.F. MacMillan, A.L. Johnson, and E.C. Johnston, 'The Northwick Park Study of First Episodes of Schizophrenia. II. A Controlled Trial of Prophylactic Neuroleptic Treatment' (1986) 148 Brit. J. of Psychiatry 120-7; see Cavadino, op. cit., n. 30, p. 488.
57. MIND, Report on Deaths Caused by Neuroleptic Drugs (1994).