Potential impact of the Human Rights Act on psychiatric practice: the best of British values?

Summary points The Human Rights Act 1998 came into effect in October 2000 and incorporated articles of the European Convention of Human Rights into English law Potentially, this could allow psychiatric patients to challenge many aspects of their care However, European cases suggest that current clinical practice is largely compatible with the act Future legislation, policy, and procedure will be shaped by patients challenging existing practice using articles of the act, and a balance will have to be struck between the rights of individual patients and the rights of the community as a whole Detention of people with mental disorder Article 5 of the Human Rights Act involves the guarantee of liberty and is the most important in relation to the detention of mentally disordered people (see box 1 ). Part (e) covers "the lawful detention of persons for the prevention of the spread of infectious diseases, of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts, or vagrants" Article 5(2)-"Everyone who is arrested shall be informed promptly, in a language which he understands, of the reasons for his arrest and of any charge against him" Article 5(4)-"Everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful" The Mental Health Act allows detention on the basis of a mental disorder "of the nature or degree" that warrants compulsory admission to hospital.