Due to a request from the Mental Health Review Tribunal, the Justice Action team was forced to remove the names of persons related to the proceedings. Our plaintiff’s name has been replaced with ‘A’. This occurs despite the clear wishes of A to have his name publicised and the basic entitlement to freely and publicly criticise the abuses of justice done to him.

On Thursday, 27 July 2013, the Mental Health Review Tribunal chaired by an ex-Supreme Court Justice conducted a hearing for the case of A with A’s psychiatrists. Representing for the hospital was the head of the treating team, a nurse, a registrar and others. Solicitor Peter O’Brien and 2 members of Justice Action were also there to support A. Justice Action’s publication of Mad in Australia was distributed to the hearing’s attendees.

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Overview:

Maintaining adequate connections with the outside world is an essential right for any patient isolated with limited human contact. Mental health patients are legally entitled to rehabilitative care and support, not punishment based treatment. Therefore to withhold visitation rights of a patient, which is an essential aspect of their social devolvement during the rehabilitative process, is an unethical infringement upon patient’s rights. It is not only important for the patient, but also their family and the individuals of the community impacted by their disorder.

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Overview:

The right to a name is basic to being human, being of worth and having a place in society. Without a name you have no unique reference point for others to relate to. However in the mental health area this right is conditional on the permission of the Health authorities, as an expression of their concern for the reputation of the consumer. In practice it only protects the Health authorities from criticism with secrecy and no media examination of Tribunal hearings. This is a touchpoint showing the lack of respect in mental health. Justice Action took this issue to the Supreme Court for Saeed Dezfouli, and finally won in a Tribunal hearing involving ABC lawyers.

Here is the original submission in his case, with an examination of the laws.

We have had to remove some of the details here under the threats of the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal, but will supply more on request. 

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Proposal for Intervention in Mental Health Crises

A paper presented at Community Justice Coalition and International Commission of Jurists (Aust) event  ‘BEDLAM: A hypothetical journey through the Justice and Mental Health Systems’ held on 29 September 2012.

This leaflet download highlights problem areas of the current Criminal Justice and Mental Health systems and raises possible solutions.

In a situation when a person feels disturbed or others feel disturbed by a person’s behaviour, it is most often handled by social processes in the person’s immediate community. At times, help is requested from outside organizations. The starkest failures have occurred after referral to police.

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Visiting an incarcerated patient breaks down the social isolation of detainees by providing physical, mental, and emotional support. Maintaining adequate connections with the outside world is an essential right for any patient isolated with limited human contact. In practice, access to patients in the forensic hospital is all but denied. Our history of attempts describes the experience. Mental health patients are legally entitled to rehabilitative care and support, not punishment based treatment. Therefore to withhold visitation rights of a patient, which is an essential aspect of their social devolvement during the rehabilitative process, is an unethical infringement upon patient’s rights. When compared with prisoners, qualification as a mental health patient entitles one to a different standard level of care. It is not only important for the patient, but also their family and the individuals of the community impacted by their disorder.

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Latest News
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Kerry O'Malley victory against forced medication
Launch UN Prohibition Campaign
Leaflet Justice Action used 10th National Seclusion and Restraint Reduction Forum

Overview
Mental health patients possess the same human rights as all other individuals in the world. According to both international and national law, they should be treated as citizens entitled to community support. Mental health facilities have a duty to care for patients in a humane, respectful manner. However, in practice, they are granted unbounded discretionary power to force vulnerable patients to take medication whenever staff believe it is appropriate. Overpowering the consumer in the form of seclusion and restraint has recently been examined by the 10th National Forum for the Reduction of Seclusion and Restraint, held in May 2015, as well as at the 9th National Seclusion and Restraint Reduction Forum, in 2013. It is the easiest management tool to keep people sedated sitting or lying down, and not help them to recovery.

The sustained use of seclusion and restraint reflects the need for systemic change in Australia’s mental health system. Improving mental health care hence requires the prioritisation of consumer autonomy and the development of alternative care practices. Greater oversight and accountability must be achieved to ensure that out-dated and harmful practices are abandoned in favour of treatment that takes a patient-centred and evidence-based approach.

Community Treatment Orders
Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) are a frequently used tool in mental health legislation to authorise the compulsory treatment of a person without their consent. This treatment is generally reduced to nothing more than arrest and forced medication. This is counterproductive and should be stopped.

Although the imposition of a CTO is the health profession’s current response to people diagnosed with mental illness and who may have a history of refusing treatment, its broad scope and intrusive nature allows great room for abuse. The wide-ranging applicability of CTOs has shaped them as a tool for control, minimising the importance of listening to the voices of mental health consumers, and producing unsatisfactory outcomes for vulnerable members of the community. 

Justice Action Publications
Mental Health Accountability and Chemical Restraint: Research and Recommendationsis a Justice Action study into mental health consumer preferences regarding medication and the willingness of authorities to consider collecting this data. 

Mad in Australia: This publication places the abuse of mental health patients in Australia within an historical and cultural context. It identifies how the culture of doctors forcing medication on mental health patients began, in breach of their ethical obligations, and against the evidence of its effectiveness. It also offers solutions.

The Emperor has no clothes: Justice Health’s lack of concern for the welfare of its clients is blindingly obvious and yet the health industry still pretends it is fulfilling its obligations.
Justice Action presented a report at Justice Health in Australia: Equity in Health Care, 15 August 2012. Available in mp3 format here.

The Our Pick Report: This report by Justice Action addresses the state of mental health care in Australia. Justice Action decided to focus on the mental health area after it had become apparent that a new strategy was required to defend community interests and prisoners' rights against the law and the added effects of tension, boredom, powerlessness and isolation occuring in imprisonment. Many prisoners become forensic patients or remain in prison under medication: the rates of major mental illness in prisons have been found to be three times higher than that of the general population. This report confronts the inadequacies plaguing mental health care in locked hospitals and prisons in Australia. 

Mental illness policy issues: There are serious failings in the way that public policy addresses mental illness in our society. The single greatest cause of distress and difficulty to many persons living with mental illness is the way our society responds to them.

Media Releases
Media Release: Mental Tribunal Permits Torture

Justice Action has achieved a considerable victory! This comes from the National Mental Health Commission who, in their 2nd Report Card, has quoted our work "Mad in Australia" as expressing the voices of the people in the justice system regarding mental health. It says that those views and stated needs must be incorporated in any promising practice for changed policies in a failed system, costing up to $1,000,000 a person a year.

This means that we will now be listened to, rather than excluded as an illegitimate outsider, with no power, especially regarding the most unpopular and socially excluded people in the community. This acknowledgement is now being used as leverage in negotiations with bureaucracies within the criminal justice sytem and government.

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Report on the 9th National Seclusion and Restraint Reduction Forum

The 9th National Seclusion and Restraint Reduction Forum in Canberra on the 28th and 29th of November, 2013 addressed the issues surrounding the overpowering of mental health consumers in Australia and offered alternatives to seclusion and restraint. At the end of the first day, the Chair of the National Mental Health Commission, Alan Fels, presented the National Seclusion and Restraint Declaration.

The declaration asserted that “seclusion and restraint of people with mental health problems is a human rights issue”, it is “not therapeutic” and it is “distressing to everyone involved.” It called for change.

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Numerous international recommendations and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) condemn forcible medication, yet it continues to be allowed under Australian law. Australia is the only country of the 79 that have ratified UNCRPD to reserve its right to forcibly medicate the disabled. For our media release click here.

Australia is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and has done a lot to improve the standards and mechanisms for people with disabilities in Australia. However there is still more to be done according to the recent observations (see links attached*) the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the body of human rights experts tasked with monitoring the implementation of the Convention).  

*Links:

Click here for a PDF copy of this article.

Click here for a DOCX copy of this article.

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