Mental incapacity: implications of the Law Commission Report

The Royal Commission on Law Relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency. Some Points from Its Report

Mental health and incapacity legislation

I enjoyed the article by Dawson & Szmukler (2006) because I like to keep up to date with legal and ethical issues in mental health. However, their claim for equivalence between mental and physical diseases sits uneasily with scientific papers published in the Journal. Shaw et al (2006) found that schizophrenia had a prevalence of 5% in perpetrators of homicide, compared with 1% in the general p...

Mental health and incapacity legislation

The laudable aim of Dawson & Szmukler (2006) of eliminating discrimination against those with mental illness by a fusion of mental health and incapacity legislation may not be achievable with their proposals. They address the ethical difficulties of treating ‘patients with fluctuating mental conditions who temporarily regain their capacity after medication, and again refuse necessary treatment’...

Mental health and incapacity legislation.

I enjoyed the article by Dawson & Szmukler (2006) because I like to keep up to date with legal and ethical issues in mental health. However, their claim for equivalence between mental and physical diseases sits uneasily with scientific papers published in the Journal. Shaw et al (2006) found that schizophrenia had a prevalence of 5% in perpetrators of homicide, compared with 1% in the general p...

Fusion of mental health and incapacity legislation

The enactment of a single legislative scheme governing nonconsensual treatment of both 'physical' and 'mental' illnesses, based on incapacity principles, has been mooted in recent law reform debates in the UK. We propose a framework for such legislation and consider in more detail the provisions it should contain. The design of legislation that combines the strengths of both incapacity and civi...