Abstract
In November 1981 the European Court of Human Rights declared that the continued detention of a person on the grounds of mental ill-health must be subject to periodic review by a court capable of ordering his discharge, even if the initial reason to commit issued from criminal proceedings. As a result, the British Government was compelled to remove the exclusive right of the Home Secretary to discharge restricted patients by extending this power to mental health review tribunals.
The present study of the practice of such tribunals was made possible by the willingness of an experienced tribunal representative to open his case files to scrutiny, and attention was focussed on those cases active since the implementation of the Mental Health Act 1983. The study period, dating from October 1983 to May 1984, yielded 35 completed case files.
As the source of the material came from a region containing two special hospitals, 28 (73.7 per cent) of the 35 tribunal hearings studied related to patients previously involved in criminal proceedings.
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