Review of the Mental Health Act.

I don't understand the ins and outs of the new review of the Mental Health Act, but I know the UK was put on notice a few years back that the regime of detaining people with no access to lawyers and no right to habeas corpus, where the detaining official must prove that he or she has legal and good reason to detain someone. The UN's Declaration of Human Rights ruled that the UK among other Western nations were in contravention of the Declaration. The government went into denial and tried to claim that they weren't contravening it because people were given a say over their treatment. But the fact is mentally ill people have no rights under the current system. They certainly have less rights than someone who has committed a criminal offence. Those people have the right of hebeas corpus. The mentally ill can be locked up indefinitely without any judicial review. They can be assessed by a Mental Act Managers review. Maybe they'll be released maybe they won't.

In this recent review it recommends these ideas as part of a new Mental Health Act now being considered by the government:

• Choice and autonomy: people being supported to express what they want and to be heard; patients should understand their rights and their relationships should be respected.
• Beneficial purpose: care and treatment should be delivered with a view to ending the need for coercion.
• Treating patients as individuals: detention should respect the individual circumstances of the detained person, and consider their protected characteristics
• Least restriction: compulsory powers should be used in the least restrictive and least invasive way possible.

This is a good start to restoring basic human rights to the mentally people of the UK. You can read the full report and recommendations carried out by the review panel.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/modernising-the-mental-health-act-final-report-from-the-independent-review

You can get more information from the charity Rethink Mental Illness: https://www.rethink.org/mhareview