Subject Bibliography in Law: Mental Health Law

Canadian Law
The 2024 Annotated Mental Disorder Provisions of the Criminal Code, Part XX.1 is an updated excerpt from the recently published Annotated Ontario Mental Health Statutes, 5th edition (Irwin Law, 2022). This text provides legal and mental health practitioners with an easy-to-use annotation of Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code. This portable book focuses exclusively upon the Mental Disorder provisions of the Criminal Code and will be produced annually with updates to the legislation and caselaw as and when they occur. In addition, this book provides an overview of practical matters, tactical matters, relevant caselaw, and legislation dealing specifically with the matters of Fitness to Stand Trial and Criminal Responsibility. The Rules of Procedure of the Ontario Review Board are included, as are all of the relevant Forms dealing with Orders that may be made within Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code. This conveniently formatted text places the updated caselaw annotations and commentary adjacent to the legislative provisions to which they relate, following the logical organization of the statutes.

Canadian Law
The fifth edition of Annotated Ontario Mental Health Statutes is an up-to-date, centralized source of legislation and analysis in the area of mental health for Ontario. Consolidated versions of the following legislation and related forms are included: the Mental Health Act and regulations; Health Care Consent Act, 1996 and regulations; the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992 and regulations; the Public Hospitals Act and regulations; and the Personal Health Information Protection Act and regulations. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the relevant sections of the Criminal Code are also included. This edition contains the mental health provisions in Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code. Also in this edition is the Crown Practice Memorandum on the Diversion of Mentally Disordered Accused. Annotations cover caselaw from Ontario, as well as other jurisdictions, through to December 2021. These annotations range in length from a few sentences to the full text of the judgment. Commentaries are practical and to the point. The format is easy to use and places the updated caselaw annotations and commentary adjacent to the legislative provisions to which they relate, following the logical organization of the statutes.

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Canadian Law
Thoughtfully edited by four of the nation’s leading subject matter experts, the Canadian Anthology on Mental Health and the Law brings together the voices of multidisciplinary experts from coast to coast. This volume contains contributions by 70 extraordinary authors--judges, academics, lawyers, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals--in conversation with family members, victims, and people living with mental health challenges. MAID and mental illness, overuse of psychiatric segregation, police interactions with persons in crisis, race-based discrimination in our mental health and justice systems, how administrative tribunals adjudicate mental health matters--these are just a few of the topics addressed in the 50 chapters in this special collection.

Canadian Law
High-profile legal cases involving individuals with mental health challenges often address complex issues that confront previous decisions of the courts, influence or change existing social policies, and ultimately have a profound impact on the daily practice of mental health professionals and the lives of their patients. Providing in-depth context into milestone cases in forensic mental health, this book addresses issues such as the confidentiality of mental health records, criminal responsibility, fitness to stand trial, the right of individuals to refuse mental health treatment, and the duty of mental health practitioners to warn and protect individuals who may be at risk of harm at the hands of a patient. The authors explore the social and political context in which these cases occurred, incorporating court decisions, contemporaneous media articles, and legal reviews in the analysis. Graham Glancy and Cheryl Regehr, who are experts in the field of forensic psychiatry, draw upon their own practice, in addition to scholarly literature, to describe the impact of the decisions rendered by the courts in the area of mental health and offer practical guidelines for professionals working at the interface of law and mental health.

Canadian Law
Recent public concern about homelessness, criminalization and victimization of people with serious mental illness and, occasionally high profile violence, has brought mental health law into the public consciousness more than ever before. Significant recent changes to legislation have added complexity for those needing to stay on top of trends. Butterworths Canadian Mental Health Law and Policy, 2nd Edition, tackles this controversial topic, providing readers with an understanding of these laws while offering a roadmap for the future.

Canadian Law
The Death of a Butterfly explores the mental health court and its relationship with the mentally disordered accused from the perspective of Ontario Court Justice Richard D. Schneider. How do the courts consider the protection of the public while also subscribing to the basic principles of therapeutic jurisprudence? This and other related topics are discussed fully in this collection of vignettes, alongside in-depth accounts of cases tried in the Old City Hall courthouse in Toronto. The tales of life in the mental health court—which served as a vibrant setting for the award-winning CBC series This Is Wonderland—provide a compelling analysis of fitness to stand trial, what it means to be criminally responsible, and the role of mental disorders. Schneider’s honest depictions offer insight into the mentally disordered accused and the factors that place these accused in the justice system.

Canadian Law
Of all the issues that bring mental health practitioners and the criminal courts together, fitness to stand trial is by far the most common. In Canada, thousands of fitness assessments, psychiatric reports, fitness hearings, and verdicts of either 'fit' or 'unfit' to stand trial are rendered every year. For such a common event, one would be inclined to think that, for the most part, the law is uncontroversial; that most of the issues have been settled. Fitness to Stand Trial lays out the law as it is seemingly settled, and discusses several areas where the law is much less settled. What exactly is required of the accused in terms of their ability to think rationally? Does one need to be 'fit to stand trial' in order to proceed with a bail hearing? Or, post-verdict, with sentencing? Can an otherwise unfit accused become 'fit enough' with the assistance of counsel? Does the test for unfit to stand trial contain a prospective element? These and many other less-than-clear aspects of the fitness rules are explored fully in this new volume.

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Canadian Law
This seminal text on consent and capacity law in Ontario assists you in navigating through the four key statutes under the mandate of the Ontario Consent and Capacity Board: the Mental Health Act, the Health Care Consent Act, 1996, the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992, and the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004. Whether you are applying to the Board or responding to an application, this guide will assist you in navigating through these four complex and interrelated statutes and give you direction to address particular issues.

Canadian Law
Law and Mental Disorder: A Comprehensive and Practical Approach is an encyclopedic medico-legal overview of forensics issues. With 60 chapters, and over 50 contributors, the topics range from an introduction to the legal system for psychiatrists, to pharmacological treatments for sex offenders, to the pathways to conduct disorder amongst children. The book has been written for a professional audience of psychiatrists, resident psychiatrists, and related heath professionals as well as legal professionals (judges, lawyers), and justice system professionals.

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Canadian Law
Law and Mental Health in Canada: Cases and Materials addresses important aspects of both individual and systemic advocacy on behalf of individuals with serious mental health issues. It surveys the field in all respects, addressing civil mental health legislation across Canada; the mental disorder provisions in the Criminal Code; other areas of criminal law where mental health is an issue; the representation of Indigenous clients with psychiatric histories; and Coroner’s Inquests into the deaths of persons in crisis at the hands of police and in institutional settings.The book includes a special chapter on representing persons with serious mental health issues, as counsel or court-appointed amicus curiae, in all manner of legal proceedings. An anti-racist, anti-colonial and intersectional approach is also employed throughout. Trauma-informed and empathic representation is emphasized. This book also compiles every leading case and references to commentary that inform debate and thoughtful exploration of the key issues in this area of law. It offers an overview of the broad range of legal issues that arise in the real-life practice of mental health law.

Canadian Law
Mental health issues pose critical challenges for Canada's systems of justice and health care. Problems with mental health are common, but often neglected due to stigma and the vulnerability of those living with these conditions. This is evident within our legal system. Every day in our courts we see played out the struggle to protect the human rights and dignity of individual Canadians with mental health challenges, to access adequate mental health care and social support, and to provide genuinely helpful responses to criminal behaviour associated with mental health problems. Law and Mind: Mental Health Law and Policy in Canada provides a comprehensive analysis of the most important cases and key debates at the intersection of mental health law and policy. Written by a group of Canada's leading experts on mental health law, this volume provides practitioners, researchers and policy-makers with valuable insight into this challenging and important area of the law.

Canadian Law
Over the past decade or so, Canada's criminal justice system has had to deal with escalating numbers of mentally disordered offenders. In response, a number of provinces have implemented "diversion" programs. These programs are designed to divert mentally disordered individuals back into the civil mental health care systems. At a federal level, the Parliament of Canada introduced sweeping changes to the Criminal Code in 2014. These changes were based on a growing appreciation that treating mentally ill offenders like other offenders was not in the interests of either the offenders or the public. The emphasis in the legislation and in the judicial decisions which have followed it is on achieving the twin goals of protecting the public and treating the mentally ill offender fairly and appropriately. This purpose of this book is to inform, promote understanding, and demystify. The book follows the logical and temporal sequence of the issues a mentally disordered accused is likely to encounter from arrest to sentencing, or in the case of an accused found not criminally responsible, until that point when he or she is absolutely discharged by a provincial or territorial review board. It provides a succinct overview of the key topics that judges, crown and defence counsel, and mental health providers are likely to encounter in their day-to-day work with mentally disordered offenders. It brings together psychiatric/clinical information with key legal principles, case law, and applicable statutory provisions; it thereby allows the reader to access relevant theoretical and practical information from the disciplines of both psychiatry and law. Collaboration between the two disciplines will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in facilitating the provision of service to this afflicted and invariably underserviced population.

Canadian Law
Mental health courts began as grassroots initiatives in the mid-1990s. Early versions found inspiration from the success of drug courts--an emerging brand of court dedicated to accused with substance addictions. On a very basic level, drug courts operate by offering accused a simple option: avoid serving a sentence for your drug-related offence by completing a drug-treatment program. One of the first known programs to tackle the problem of mentally disordered accused in the criminal justice system was created in Toronto. The "Diversion of Mentally Disordered Accused" became a program which was part of the Crown Policy Manual in 1994. The success of these specialty courts, along with a growing awareness that the traditional criminal justice system was failing individuals with mental disorders, combined to legitimize the emergence of mental health courts. In writing this book, the authors have sought to assist two groups of professionals primarily involved with these courts, namely, mental health care service providers and the various criminal justice professionals. Part I of this book is an overview of the historical and theoretical foundations underlying the mental health court movement. It outlines the various factors which precipitated the emergence of these courts. Part II offers a thorough description of a typical mental health court in operation. In addition to describing the role of each mental health court team member, it goes on to provide guidance to those seeking to establish a mental health court. Part III analyzes the successes and failures of these courts and ends with a critical look at the long-term desirability of mental health courts.

International Comparative Law
This book represents the first systematic study of the certification of lunacy in the British Empire. Considering a variety of legal, archival, and published sources, it traces the origins and dissemination of a peculiar method for determining mental unsoundness defined as the 'Victorian system'. Shaped by the dynamics surrounding the clandestine committal of wealthy Londoners in private madhouses, this system featured three distinctive tenets: standardized forms, independent medical examinations, and written facts of insanity. Despite their complexity, Victorian certificates achieved a remarkable success. Not only did they survive in the UK for more than a century, but they also served as a model for the development of mental health laws around the world. By the start of the Second World War, more than seventy colonial and non-colonial jurisdictions adopted the Victorian formula for making lunacy official with some countries still relying on it to this very day. Using case studies from Europe, the Americas, and the Pacific, this book charts the temporal and geographical trajectory of an imperial technology used to determine a person's destiny. Shifting the focus from metropolitan policies to colonial dynamics, and from macro developments to micro histories, it explores the perspectives of families, doctors, and public officials as they began to deal with the delicate business of certification. This book will be of interest to scholars working on mental health policy, the history of medicine, disability studies, and the British Empire. 

International Comparative Law
Since adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the interpretive General Comment 1, the topic of legal capacity in mental health settings has generated considerable debate in disciplines ranging from law and psychiatry to public health and public policy. With over 180 countries having ratified the Convention, the shifts required in law and clinical practice need to be informed by interdisciplinary and contextually relevant research as well as the views of stakeholders. With an equal emphasis on the Global North and Global South, this volume offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of legal capacity in the realm of mental health. Integrating rigorous academic research with perspectives from people with psychosocial disabilities and their caregivers, the authors provide a holistic overview of pertinent issues and suggest avenues for reform.

International Comparative Law
The debate about whether mental health law should be abolished or reformed emerged during the negotiations of the Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and has raged fiercely for over a decade. It has resulted in an impasse between abolitionists, States Parties, and other reformers and a literature which has devolved into 'camps'. Mental Health Law: Abolish or Reform? aims to break new ground by cutting through the confusion using the tools of human rights treaty interpretation backed by a deep jurisprudential analysis of core CRPD concepts - dignity (including autonomy), equality, and participation - to gain a clearer understanding of the meaning of the CRPD and what it requires States Parties to do. In doing so, it sets out the development of mental health law and is unique in tracing the history of the abolitionist movement and how and why it has emerged now. By digging deeper into the conceptual basis of the CRPD and developing the 'interpretive compass' based on those three core CRP

International Comparative Law
Mental health law is a rapidly evolving area of practice and research, with growing global dimensions. This work reflects the increasing importance of this field, critically discussing key issues of controversy and debate, and providing up-to-date analysis of cutting-edge developments in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Australia. This is a timely moment for this book to appear. The United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) sought to transform the landscape in which mental health law is developed and implemented. This Convention, along with other developments, has, to varying degrees, informed sweeping legislative reforms in many countries around the world. These and other developments are discussed here. Contributors come from a wide range of countries and a variety of academic backgrounds including ethics, law, philosophy, psychiatry, and psychology. Some contributions are also informed by lived experience, whether in person or as family members. The result is a rich, polyphonic, and sometimes discordant account of what mental health law is and what it might be. The Handbook is aimed at mental health scholars and practitioners as well as students of law, human rights, disability studies, and psychiatry, and campaigners and law- and policy-makers.

International Comparative Law
This book provides a systematic and interdisciplinary study of occupational mental health legislation in seven countries. The work presents a study of the laws, policies, and legal interpretations to help prevent mental health problems from occurring in the workplace and appropriately address problems once they do occur. With a view to improving provision in Japan, the author examines the legal issues relating to workplace mental health and stress in the USA, UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, France and Germany. In presenting a comparative discussion of mental health issues in the workplace, this book seeks to establish a minimum for legal rights and duties that contribute to prevention and not just compensation. With its detailed comparative and descriptive coverage of legal and related provisions in a range of countries, the book will be a valuable resource for academics, policy-makers and practitioners working in labour and employment law, social welfare, occupational health and human resource management.

US Law
Written by esteemed legal scholar Michael L. Perlin, this indispensable Advanced Introduction examines the long-standing but ever-dynamic relationship between law and mental health. The author discusses and contextualises how the law, primarily in the United States but also in other countries, treats mental health, intellectual disabilities, and mental incapacity, giving examples of how issues such as the rights of patients, the death penalty and the insanity defense permeate constitutional, civil, and criminal matters, and indeed the general practice of law.

US Law
Doubts about the reality of mental illness and the benefits of psychiatric treatment helped foment a revolution in the law's attitude toward mental disorders over the last 25 years. Legal reformers pushed for laws to make it more difficult to hospitalize and treat people with mental illness, and easier to punish them when they committed criminal acts. Advocates of reform promised vast changes in how our society deals with the mentally ill; opponents warily predicted chaos and mass suffering. Now, with the tide of reform ebbing, Paul Appelbaum examines what these changes have wrought. The message emerging from his careful review is a surprising one: less has changed than almost anyone predicted. When the law gets in the way of commonsense beliefs about the need to treat serious mental illness, it is often put aside. Judges, lawyers, mental health professionals, family members, and the general public collaborate in fashioning an extra-legal process to accomplish what they think is fair for persons with mental illness. Appelbaum demonstrates this thesis in analyses of four of the most important reforms in mental health law over the past two decades: involuntary hospitalization, liability of professionals for violent acts committed by their patients, the right to refuse treatment, and the insanity defense. This timely and important work will inform and enlighten the debate about mental health law and its implications and consequences. The book will be essential for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, lawyers, and all those concerned with our policies toward people with mental illness.

US Law
A Casebook of Mental Capacity in US Legislation: Assessment and Legal Commentary employs an applied and accessible approach to the assessment of mental capacity. Through the use of rich vignettes and case examples, the text provides legal commentary to illustrate state laws and ethical principles from varied decision-making capacities in distinct settings to fortify its assessment. The text begins by providing a background about decision-making capacity as a construct. It also provides practical guidance on capacity assessment germane to a broad range of clinical settings, including geropsychology, health psychology, and neuropsychology. It moves on to reviewing decision-making rights that make up capacity, and provides ethical guidelines while drawing the practitioner's attention to the common pitfalls. The case presentations and legal commentary underline key areas such as the capacity to consent to medical treatment, make welfare decisions, enter into a sexual relationship, make financial decisions, create or revoke a will, litigate and contract, and stand trial. It also includes a chapter focusing on integrating culture and diversity in capacity evaluations with the aim of increasing the practitioner's competence. This casebook will be useful for clinical psychologists in practice, researchers and students seeking to understand how to perform capacity assessments, as well as other related healthcare professionals. It is further aimed at legal professionals to utilize as a reference that details how individual types of capacity are defined and assessed.

US Law
The complicated relationship between defendants with mental health disorders and the criminal justice system The American criminal justice system is based on the bedrock principles of fairness and justice for all. In striving to ensure that all criminal defendants are treated equally under the law, it endeavors to handle similar cases in similar fashion, attempting to apply rules and procedures even-handedly regardless of a defendant's social class, race, ethnicity, or gender. Yet, the criminal justice system has also recognized exceptions when special circumstances underlie a defendant's behavior or are likely to skew the defendant's trial. One of the most controversial set of exceptions -often poorly articulated and inconsistently applied - involves criminal defendants with a mental disorder. A series of special rules and procedures has evolved over the centuries, often without fanfare and even today with little systematic examination, that lawyers and judges apply to cases involving defendants with a mental disorder. This book provides an analysis of the key issues in this dynamic interplay between individuals with a mental disorder and the criminal justice system. The volume identifies the various stages of criminal justice proceedings when the mental status of a defendant may be relevant, associated legal and policy issues, the history and evolution of these issues, and how they are currently resolved. To assist this exploration, the text also offers an overview of mental disorders, their relevance to criminal proceedings, how forensic mental health assessments are conducted and employed during these proceedings, and their application to competency and responsibility determinations. In sum, this book provides an important resource for students and scholars with an interest in mental health, law, and criminal justice.

US Law
In the 1970's, sociologists found that mentally disordered patients were routinely committed to state hospitals. By 2005, state hospital facilities had been emptied and, consequently, the patients for whom they cared for had been shuffled elsewhere by the system. Some of these patients were placed in private hospitals. However, for many, there was no asylum-there was only jail or the street. How does our legal and mental health system handle the mentally disordered? In Law and the Disordered, George C. Klein presents a revealing survey that explores the system of processing prisoners and patients from arrest to admissions to court. In an investigation spanning over thirty years, Klein examines and evaluates the intersection of law, mental health, and social control. He additionally explores the condition of state level Department's of Mental Health and mental health legislation in an attempt to offer readers a complete picture of the system at work.

US Law
In post-revolutionary America, the autonomous individual was both the linchpin of a young nation and a threat to the founders' vision of ordered liberty. Conceiving of self-government as a psychological as well as a political project, jurists built a republic of laws upon the Enlightenment science of the mind with the aim of producing a responsible citizenry. Susanna Blumenthal probes the assumptions and consequences of this undertaking, revealing how ideas about consciousness, agency, and accountability have shaped American jurisprudence. Focusing on everyday adjudication, Blumenthal shows that mental soundness was routinely disputed in civil as well as criminal cases. Litigants presented conflicting religious, philosophical, and medical understandings of the self, intensifying fears of a populace maddened by too much liberty. Judges struggled to reconcile common sense notions of rationality with novel scientific concepts that suggested deviant behavior might result from disease rather than conscious choice. Determining the threshold of competence was especially vexing in litigation among family members that raised profound questions about the interconnections between love and consent. This body of law coalesced into a jurisprudence of insanity, which also illuminates the position of those to whom the insane were compared, particularly children, married women, and slaves. Over time, the liberties of the eccentric expanded as jurists came to recognize the diversity of beliefs held by otherwise reasonable persons. In calling attention to the problematic relationship between consciousness and liability, Law and the Modern Mind casts new light on the meanings of freedom in the formative era of American law.

US Law
Mental illness and intellectual disability (formerly called mental retardation) impact 20% of Americans, and have enormous personal, legal, and policy implications for patients, families, and society. This Nutshell introduces you to the broad range of criminal and civil issues in mental health law, including diagnosis of mental illness; expert testimony on mental health issues; civil commitment; competence to stand trial; the insanity defense; various competencies; ethical/legal issues facing mental health professionals, including informed consent, confidentiality, privilege, and malpractice; discrimination against persons with mental illness; financial and medical benefits for disabled persons.

US Law
Examining the treatment of persons with mental disabilities in the criminal justice system, this book offers new perspectives that are crucial to an understanding of the ways in which society projects onto criminal defendants prejudices and attitudes about responsibility, free will, autonomy, choice, public safety, and the meaning and purpose of punishment, all with a focus on ways to enhance dignity in the criminal trial process. It is a detailed exploration of issues of adequacy of counsel; the impact of international human rights law, following the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD); the role of mental health courts; and the influence of therapeutic jurisprudence, procedural justice, and restorative justice on the legal process. It considers all of these perspectives in the context of criminal justice system issues such as competency findings, the insanity defense, and sentencing. Demonstrating how the question of treatment of persons with mental disabilities in the criminal justice system is not only a vital one for both scholars and practitioners, but also a central facet of international human rights law, this book suggests policy development, further scholarly inquiries, and newly invigorated thinking and action to place dignity at the core of the criminal justice system.

UK Law
Completely updated to reflect current changes in the law and in practice, Mental Health Law: a practical guide is a concise and approachable handbook to mental health law for students and professionals working in psychiatric settings. * Easy to read, practical and illustrated with case vignettes and wealth of down to earth advice to guide you through many complex legal issues * Multidisciplinary approach written by specialist authors and key opinion leaders who understand the practical issues you face * Fully updated and expanded to include the Mental Health Act 2007 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 so that you are totally up to date * Provides clear guidance, practical pointers and all you need to know about mental health law implementation This authoritative guide will serve as a comprehensive introduction and long-term resource manual for trainee and qualified psychiatrists as well as nurses, social workers, psychologists and occupational therapists working in mental health.

UK Law
Mental Health Law in England and Wales is a comprehensive guide to the Mental Health Act 1983 for any mental health professional - from social workers, psychologists and occupational therapists, to doctors and nurses. The book aims to simplify mental health law so that it's accessible to busy professionals at all stages of practice as well as those affected by mental health law. Key chapters include details on who operates the Act, who is affected by it, how the law governs issues of capacity and consent to treatment, how to appeal against compulsion, and the role of the nearest relative. There are also important chapters on advocacy, children and human rights issues, as well as extensive appendices which provide access to the 1983 Act itself, important rules and regulations, and a summary of key cases. This Fifth Edition includes:  - Practical advice and checklists for working with the Act. - An updated text of the Mental Health Act and relevant Rules and Regulations. - Recent case law including the Devon judgment on Mental Health Act assessments. - A summary of the Human Rights Act 1998. - Guidance on the interface between the Mental Health Act and the Mental Capacity Act. - Recent case law concerning the 'relevant information' when assessing for incapacity.

UK Law
This practical book provides all professionals, particularly legal representatives, with an accessible and up-to-date guide to Mental Health Tribunals. It a concise overview of the human rights and policy background analysis of the legal definition of mental disorder and use of compulsory powers a clear statement of the Tribunal powers applicable to offender and non-offender patients, unrestricted patients, and community patients a chronological account of the procedure and operation of the Tribunals an outline of the typical procedural steps for a patient's representative review of the public funding position. Uniquely, the authors explain where the law, rules and procedures differ between England and Wales, and the rules for each Tribunal are conveniently set out in comprehensive appendix materials. This book will be invaluable to those seeking accreditation or re-accreditation under the Law Society's Mental Health Accreditation Scheme.

Australian Law
This book brings together contributions from twenty-three world-leading scholars and commentators which address a range of contemporary and pressing international themes in mental health, disability and criminal law. The authors use the work of internationally renowned academic, Emeritus Professor Bernadette McSherry, as a springboard to reflect on recent developments in these areas of law and to anticipate the future directions they may take. In doing so, they aim to inform and inspire a new generation of mental health, disability and criminal law scholars, advocates and reformers. The book is divided into four substantive sections: reforming mental health and disability law; regulating coercion and restrictive practices; improving access to justice and the criminal law; and transforming mental health law. It also includes an introduction from the editors and an afterword from Emeritus Professor McSherry. The book is aimed at regulators, policymakers, lawyers, clinicians, consumer advocates and academics who are interested in the urgent and contentious issues surrounding the reform and development of mental health, disability and criminal law. It will help them understand the key issues and problems and presents suggestions for reform. The book is interdisciplinary and international in its focus.

Australian Law
The book provides a detailed and clear examination of hypothetical problem cases and responses, with coverage of all Australian jurisdictions in a mental health tribunal setting. It is filled with case examples and a wealth of practical advice to guide you through many complex legal issues relating to the respective Mental Health Acts, providing clear guidance, useful examples and all you need to know about mental health law in a civil context. It includes voluntary and involuntary patient care, community treatment orders, electroconvulsive therapy, emergency surgery, and appeals from the tribunal to a higher jurisdiction or a court of law. Treatment responses such as the prescription of psychotropic medication for a mental illness are also discussed. Various mental illnesses and disorders are explained using the selected diagnostic categories from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM). There is a brief explanation of how psychiatric disorders were perceived from medieval to modern times.