Putting mental health into mental health law

This article critiques the traditional doctrinal approach to mental health law and compares the traditional approach with a new, interdisciplinary approach known as therapeutic jurisprudence. Therapeutic jurisprudence views the law itself as a potential therapeutic agent. Examples are given of how legal rules, procedures, and the roles of legal actors may produce therapeutic or antitherapeutic results and of how the law may improve therapeutic outcomes without sacrificing the interests of justice.     

The Justiciability of Resource Allocation

A perennial problem in public law is how courts ought to deal with legal challenges to the allocation of public resources. This article explains and renders more coherent the varied approaches of English courts to the justiciability of resource allocation disputes in administrative and tort law. It draws a distinction between 'discretionary allocative decision-making' and 'allocative impact.' The non-justiciability doctrine in R v Cambridge Health Authority , ex p B is concerned with the former only. By contrast, allocative impact is a justiciable matter, but can still ultimately defeat a claim. This distinction, however, does not guide judicial approaches under the Human Rights Act 1998, where courts have chosen mostly to eschew the non-justiciability doctrine in favour of more flexibly applied notions of judicial deference. Thus while the non-justiciability doctrine has a relatively narrow scope in administrative and tort law, it has nearly disappeared under human rights law.     

论受教育权的可诉性及其程度

受教育权的可诉性及其程度受到两个层次的理论和实践的深刻影响,一是国际法关于自由权和社会权的划分,二是国内法关于宪法权利和法律权利的区分。受教育权作为宪法权利,在自由权层面及形式平等方面具有直接的法律效力,具有可诉性;但在社会权层面,只有义务教育阶段的入学升学权和免费就学权具有可诉性。受教育权作为法律权利,其可诉性程度大大提高。平等主体之间的受教育权纠纷可由双方提起民事诉讼予以解决;但行政相对人向行政主体提起的行政诉讼则同样受到被侵害的受教育权性质的影响。     

环境权的规范效力:可诉性和具体化

环境权的规范效力包括可诉性效力和具体化效力。可诉性效力指环境权直接作为审判依据,具体化效力指借由立法间接影响审判。国外环境权诉讼中,结合宪法环境权规范和立法的具体条款作出裁判的案例同时体现可诉性效力和具体化效力;仅以宪法环境权规范为依据的案例,只运用可诉性效力,是为环境权的自我执行。环境权的自我执行违背了形式理性优先于实质理性的原则和权力分立原则,仅在宪法司法化的国家处于环境立法体系尚未建立的阶段有必要性。宪法环境权规范没有规定法定效果,属于原则范畴,其适用方式是和其他原则进行衡量,经由具体化为立法中的规则发挥作用。审理案件时,法院应优先适用立法(具体化效力),在立法存在歧义或者冲突时,法院可以借助对宪法环境权的解释厘清立法的模糊之处(可诉性效力)。我国目前环境立法比较系统,很大程度上消解了环境权诉讼的必要性;宪法尚未司法化更是彻底否定了环境权诉讼的可行性。不过,环境权入宪仍具有积极意义。     

论行政纠纷可诉性

尽管依法行政与人权保障的价值诉求共同赋予行政纠纷可诉性以正当理由,但后者并非没有限制,而是受宪法对监督行政权之权力的配置、司法权化解纠纷的能力等影响因素所制约。就行政纠纷可诉性的确定模式而言,我国实现了由列举式、形式混合式到实质混合式的跨越。在行政纠纷可诉性的判定上,我国呈现"两序列三标准":对客观诉讼适用法律拟制标准;对主观诉讼则适用"认为合法权益受侵犯"的主观判定标准与"权利义务受行政行为所实际影响"的客观判定标准,且客观判定标准在主观诉讼中发挥决定性作用。伴随撤销诉讼中心主义缓和、无漏洞权利保护理念落实与行政过程论兴起,行政诉讼法意义上的"行政行为"概念逐渐超出狭义行政行为(行政处分)的范畴。同时,伴随主观公权利扩张与反射利益收缩,"权利义务受实际影响"的范围也在延伸。由此,客观判定标准在我国呈现出扩大化的趋势。     

Integration and offender mental health

Integrated care can introduce seamless coordinated pathways that are focused around the individual needs of patients, helping to prevent missed opportunities for intervention. Within offender healthcare, sequential funnelling through designated areas where screening can take place, along with co-location of services, lends itself to integrated working, at least in theory. However, within the offender healthcare pathway, service fragmentation and autonomous, disconnected (often referred to as siloed) working, has historically been the norm. If commissioned and designed to ensure and incentivise connections between services, whilst developing high quality service-focused research activities, pathways could enable clinical and social interventions, and outcomes, on a public health scale for these highly morbid populations. As such, offender healthcare offers a real opportunity to model integration for wider introduction across other health and social care areas. Discussed within is the call for integration, its concept, and its role within offender healthcare.     

Redefining mental health law

Mental health law traditionally focuses on preserving the civil and constitutional rights of people labeled mentally ill. However, because of fundamental changes in the public mental health system. most people labeled mentally ill no longer reside in state psychiatric hospitals. As a result, the core policy issue in mental health today is assuring access to community based services, supports, and housing which enable people to live successfully in the community. Because of this different environment, the definition and scope of mental health law must be expanded dramatically if those interested in the subject are to continue to influence mental health policy. This article examines five contemporary mental health policy issues, including changes in reimbursement systems and the growth of the consumer and family movements, that illustrate the legal, policy, and research questions which will emerge in an expanded and redefined mental health law agenda. The author thanks Ingo Keilitz, Thomas Hafemeister, and Pamela Casey for their review of earlier drafts of this article.     

经济、社会和文化权利可诉性问题探析

我国自2001年批准加入《经济、社会和文化权利国际公约》以来，有关经济、社会和文化权利是否具有可诉性的问题一直存在争论。近年来，经济、社会和文化权利具有可诉性的观点开始得到越来越多的国家的支持。立足于我国国情，从多方面完善经济、社会和文化权利保障制度，并在对经济、社会和文化权利进行分层分类的基础上，探索经济、社会和文化权利可诉性的理论和制度，将是法律制度发展的一条可行道路。     

Community mental health and prisons: A model for constitutionally adequate care in correctional mental health

The establishment of judicially acceptable standards of mental health care within a prison setting requires the adoption of a service-delivery model and a constant evaluation of that model in relation to individual and civil rights. This article reviews the experience of the department of corrections in one state in developing a constitutionally adequate mental health system. The report outlines the programs established, the legal basis for decisions, and recent constitutional challenges. Future trends in correctional mental health are also discussed.     

Inequality, privacy, and mental health

The state's mental health power is standardly understood in terms of the state's power to intervene with persons or populations to address mental health problems. This article advances a more expansive view of the state's mental health power, one which seeks to capture those exercises of state power that do not directly concern mental health but that nevertheless can have a profound effect on mental well-being. The article considers two features of contemporary American society that implicate the state in conditions that undermine, or threaten to undermine, mental health. The first concerns the impact of poverty and inequality on mental health. The second concerns the threat to the self posed by measures that would significantly erode privacy. The article argues that a greater commitment to liberal principles of equality and tolerance is crucial to overcoming the perils for mental health that poverty and losses of privacy generate.     

Private regulation in mental health

General hospitals are increasingly important sources of care for chronic and acute mental patients. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH) standards for staffing in general hospitals require the same degree of physician supervision and control for all services, including mental health. This paper considers the economic impact of JCAH standards on the practice of psychologists in hospitals. The “voluntariness” of the standards is assessed and the evidence that these standards foster economic protectionism is considered. We conclude that in light of the demonstrated capability of nonphysician professionals, methods of quality control appropriate for physician health care in general hospitals should be reconsidered as these instutions diversify into mental health services.     

受教育权可诉性新论

受教育权是享有和实现其他权利的基础性权利或“授权性”权利。本文提出了判断受教育权可诉性的标准,从受教育权可诉性的阙如、可司法性和多样性方面系统考察了受教育权在全球层面、区域层面、外国层面的衍生和发展,并在查明中国受教育权可诉性现状的基础上探讨了中国提升受教育权可诉性的现实途径。