APPENDIX 7
Memorandum by the Royal College of Psychiatrists
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO THE CLERK OF THE
COMMITTEE
INQUIRY INTO
THE GOVERNMENT'S
PROPOSALS FOR
MANAGING DANGEROUS
PEOPLE WITH
SEVERE PERSONALITY
DISORDER
Thank you for inviting the Royal College of
Psychiatrists to comment on the civil liberties aspects of these
proposals. The College has convened a working party, under my
chairmanship, to prepare our response to the proposals as a whole.
You will appreciate that we are still in the throes of doing so
and nothing as yet has been affirmed by our College Council. However,
the following is taken from the first draft of our response, in
an opening section dealing with general principles:
"These proposals raise the most profound
issues of civil rights. The College acknowleges that there is
sometimes a balance to be struck between the public's right to
order and safety, and the individual's civil rights. The individual's
rights include the right to a valid, non-discriminatory diagnosis,
to a full and reliable assessment of risk and needs; to the principle
of least restrictive intervention compatible with that assessment;
to `reciprocity'—no incarceration without just cause and
the promise of something in return; and to the expectancy of a
range of care and treatment according to the individual's needs.
Good mental health legislation is the guardian
of those rights. The College considers that there are some elements
of these proposals that so compromise those rights in favour of
perceived public safety that they become little more than a Public
Order Act. We would resent the attempt to use the concept of `unsoundness
of mind' in any revamped mental health legislation administered
by mental health personnel to get around any absence of preventative
detention in English Law. It is no part of the psychiatrist's
role to extend the sentence of those who have committed a crime
or to impose one on those who have not. This would have disturbing
echoes of the abuse of psychiatry in other countries that the
College has fought so hard against in the past. We feel that the
assumption that these proposals can be made compatible with the
European Convention on Human Rights (Part 1, Paragraph 7; Part
3, Paragraph 8; Annex B) is naive."
Our response then examines in detail why we
do not consider that any of the components of the individual's
rights listed above is satisfied. As a result of this, it is our
opinion on the two options for management outlined in the proposals,
that the College could not agree with (i) the removal of the "treatability"
clause in mental health legislation (as part of option A) or (ii)
the imposition of a DSPD order in civil proceedings on those who
have not committed a crime (as part of option B).
The full College response will be considered
by the College's Executive and Finance Committee later this week,
and is likely to be finalised and authorised by the College's
Council within the next few weeks.
Mike Shooter
Registrar and Chair, College Working Party
11 October 1999
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