The medical psychiatric staff at Hillmorton hospital are authorized to use resonable force on patients to treat them (see s.122B(3), Mental Health (CAT)Act 1992).
Forced medical treatment in inconsistent with section 11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Section 11 states that everyone has the right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment. This is a fundamental human right. Hillmorton medical staff have been/and are involved in the detainment and forced drugging (and ECT) of patients at Hillmorton, as are staff at other state psychiatric institutions throughout new zealand.
;">www.stopforceddrugging.blogspot.com
The message is this: all legislative provisions that compel a so -called 'mentally disordered' (see definition in s.2 Mental Health (CAT) Act 1992) person to take drugs should be repealed. Parliament, should not have the jurisdiction to decide what drug another human being has to take and to compel them to take it. However, Parliament, with its supremacy, has theoretically and academically speaking , unlimited power. It almost escapes comprehension how Parliament's jurisdiction could extend to these vast limits. You will note the posters on this blog using terms like 'fascist democracy'. That observation is not an inaccurate one. In New Zealand, descriptions such as 'tyranny of the majority' and 'elective dictatorship' fit nicely. This country is essentially, even with MMP, controlled by the majority.
The majority, via a democratic mandate, elect their representatives into power. However they cannot be blamed after that for what those representatives, acting as Parliament, enact into law. The majority are to blame for the initial act, that is, of electing representatives into Parliament based on a handful of promises. If Parliament later choose to break those promises there is little the majority can do. Where do the minority fit into to all this?
Do you think the minority, the ones held under the Mental Health Act, would have voted for representatives who sought to enact a piece of legislation that takes away their fundamental rights, such as the right to refuse treatment in section 11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990? Or, do you think they they would vote for a party they wished to enact legislation that authorized the use of force on them? ( see s.122B(3) MHA ). It is absurd to even suggest it. Who would vote for a party that promised to take away the rights of the very people who voted them into power? That is why the majority in this country are to blame, as they hold the power, through the sheer weight of numbers, to elect who they want. A small sector of the population is held under the provisions of the Mental Health (CAT) Act 1992. In reality, any person who comes within the statutory definition of 'mental disorder' in section 2 of the 1992 Act can be detained and forced to take drugs, however, this is not the reality. Only a small defenseless group of individuals are held under the 1992 Act. They are hidden from site and locked away in some psychiatric institution or live in compulsory community care in some house hidden in suburbia.
Do you think that that small dis -empowered minority will ever be able to effect any real change to the 1992 legislation? Even if there was a political party who sought to repeal or amend certain provisions in the 1992 Act would they have sufficient numbers in Parliament to do so? Could they form a coalition with another like minded party? How would the majority respond if this were to happen; or would the majority now be relegated to position of minority?
judicial criticism of detention:
"...any deprivation of liberty, incarceration, or physical detention is, in reality, a form of punishment," Hamilton v. Love, 328 F.Supp. 1182, 1193.
