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KMID : 1234820160170010209
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Korean Society of Law and Medicine
2016 Volume.17 No. 1 p.209 ~ p.279
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The review of the 2016 amended Korean Mental Health promotion Act from the Perspective of Human Rights and Inclusion of Persons with Mental Disabilities
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Park In-Hwan
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Abstract
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The Korean Mental Health Act was amended 2016 overall. This paper examines and evaluates the old Korean Mental Health Act since 1995 and the new Korean Mental Health Promotion Act 2016 from the Perspective of Human Rights and Inclusion of Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities. The persons with mental disabilities was separated and ruled out from society by the enactment of the Mental Health Act in 1995 and five times amendment. That has been justified and institutionally supported by medical viewpoint. The medical approach which reconsider the persons with mental disabilities as patients conceal that the aims of the involuntary admission in Mental Hospital are protection of society and the relief of the family member’s duty of support for person with mental disabilities. This is institutionally supported in the 1995 Korean Mental Health Act by involuntary admission through the consent of family members as protectors. According to the old Act, the family members as protectors are authorized to consent to involuntary admission of persons with mental disabilities. Also, the psychiatrist that diagnoses the person with mental disabilities and evaluates the need for treatment by admission is not impartial in this decision. Family members as protectors may want to lighten their burden of support for the person with mental disabilities in their home by admitting them into a mental hospital, and the psychiatrist in the mental hospital can be improperly influenced by demand of hospital management. Additionally, Article 24 of the Korean Mental Health Act for the Involuntary Admission by the Consent of Family Members as Protector might violate personal liberty, as guaranteed in the Korean Constitution. The Mental Health Promotion Law was amended to reduce the scope of the persons with mental illness which are subject to forced hospitalization and to demand that a second diagnosis is made by another psychiatrist and screening by the committee concerning the legitimacy of admission in the process of the involuntary admission by the consent of family members as a method of protection. The amended Mental Health Promotion Law will contribute to reducing the number of the involuntary admissions and the inclusion of persons with mental disabilities. But if persons with mental disabilities are not providing some kind of service to the community, the amended Mental Health Promotion Law does not work for Inclusion of them.
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KEYWORD
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Mental Health Act, Mental Health Promotion Act, persons with mental disabilities, rights of persons with mental disabilities, involuntary hospitalization, forced hospitalization
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