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Book review: A tendency to laugh and sing: some notes on mental health law

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10 June 2010 / Tim Spencer-Lane
Issue: 7421 / Categories: Blogs , Mental health
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Dr David Hewitt will be a name familiar to most NLJ readers, especially mental health lawyers.

Author: David Hewitt
Publisher: Northumbria Law Press (October 2008)
ISBN: 1906596026, £24.99

Dr David Hewitt will be a name familiar to most NLJ readers, especially mental health lawyers. As well as being a prolific writer and commentator, he is a mental health solicitor, visiting fellow of Northumbria and Lincoln Universities and a judge of the mental health tribunal.    

This book is a collection of articles and lectures written by Dr Hewitt between 1995 and 2007, including several that appeared originally in NLJ. Some are short and sweet (for example, a one page letter to the editor of the British Medical Journal on the landmark Bournewood case) others are lengthy and academic.

The book is divided into five chapters. The first looks at the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights on mental health law. The second deals with significant issues in mental health case law during

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