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Bournewood: Law and capacity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

M. Devakumar
M. Devakumar*
Affiliation:
Gwynedd Community Health Trust, Department of Psychiatry, Hergest Unit, Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor, Gwyned LL57 2PW
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The Law Lords in June 1998 overturned the judgement in the matter of L. v. Bournewood. The Law Lords, on a majority decision, were of the opinion that a compliant incapacitated patient such as L. does not need the formal powers of the Mental Health Act and admission to hospital and subsequent assessment and treatment for mental disorder can be based on the common law principles of necessity. However, this position is quite contrary to the Appeal Court judges' view, “The right of a hospital to detain a patient for treatment for mental disorder is to be found in, and only in, the 1983 Act, whose provisions apply to the exclusion of the common law principle of necessity” (L. v. Bournewood Community Mental Health Trust, 1997).

Type
Special article
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , March 1999 , pp. 177
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

References

L v. Bournewood Community Mental Health Trust (1997) Court of Appeal Judgement, 2 WLR 764.Google Scholar
Wilcox, B. (1998) WHC (98) 32, July 1998. Welsh Office.Google Scholar
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