The Centre for Addition and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Mental Health Centre Penetanguichene (MHCP)appealed an order by the Mental Disorder Court to send a person accused of sexual assault to a hospital for psychiatric treatment. The judge knew that beds for treatment would not be available until six days later. The appeal was on …Read more

After sounding a car horn repeatedly and behaving in a highly agitated manner, the applicant was arrested by police in Birmingham, United Kingdom. It was determined that before his arrest, the man had inflicted serious injury upon his aunt at his residence. He was detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act, which allows …Read more

The Applicant, a UK citizen born in 1947, alleged that the seclusion policy (“Policy”) of Ashworth Special Hospital (“Ashworth”), the maximum security hospital where he was committed for a mental illness, violated the European Convention on Human Rights. After several instances of incarceration and hospitalization on account of various mental health issues, the applicant was …Read more

The Crown alleged that the complainant, a 26-year-old woman with the mental age of a three to 6-year-old was repeatedly sexually assaulted by her mother’s partner D.A.I during the four years that he lived in their home. The Crown sought to call the complainant to testify about the alleged assaults. The trial judge found that …Read more

S, an adult male diagnosed with schizophrenia, lived for many years with his half-sister and step-mother, his closest living relatives, before they applied in 2000 to the Ruse Regional Court to have S declared legally incapacitated. The court declared S only partially incapacitated. S’s family refused to accept guardianship for S, and the court instead …Read more

Milan Sykora, a Czech national, suffered from a psycho-social disability and did not take his medication because he claimed it negatively affected his eyesight. In November 2000 the Brno Municipal Court deprived Sykora of his capacity to make legal decisions after he failed to collect his pension for four years. The decision was made based …Read more

The Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (“CEHURD”) alleged that Uganda passed laws that were (1) degrading to mentally challenged individuals and (2) contrary to the Ugandan Constitution (“Constitution”). The factual issue at hand involved the claim that people with mental disabilities were being detained for long and indefinite periods of time without due …Read more

The claimant (L), a 45-year-old woman with an intellectual disability, appealed a decision by the Family Court which had ordered a 12-month extension to the compulsory care order that L was under. The care order had been initially ordered under the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003 (“IDCCR Act”) because of L’s violent …Read more

The accused was found not guilty by reason of insanity on a charge of sexual assault with a weapon in 1983. He was subsequently detained in numerous mental health facilities. Before his annual review hearing in 2006 was held, the accused alleged that the centre in which he was detained had violated his constitutional rights …Read more

The appellant, VM, challenged a renewal of her detention under a compulsory care order governed by the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003 (the “Act”). In 2005, the appellant was charged with possession of a knife in a public place when she became fixated on one of her care workers and showed up …Read more