Mental health

It was well established by Strasbourg jurisdiction that four conditions had to be satisfied for the detention of a person of unsound mind to be lawful and his discharge refused: (i) there had to be reliable medical evidence that the patient was suffering from a mental disorder; (ii) the mental disorder had to be of a kind or degree warranting compulsory confinement; (iii) the mental condition had to persist throughout the period of confinement; and (iv) the criteria for detention had to be “prescribed by law”, that was to say, be set out in legislation, so that the patient knew what they were and could bring effective proceedings to challenge his detention.