Mental health
Your rights as a mental health patient
Review and appeals
You have the right to review or appeal decisions made about you at different stages of the compulsory assessment and treatment process:
- while you are being assessed, you can ask a judge to review the decision that you have a “mental disorder”
- if, when your compulsory treatment order is reviewed, your responsible clinician decides that you are not fit to be released from compulsory status, you can apply to the Review Tribunal for a review of this decision
- if you are in hospital under an inpatient order, you or another person can apply to the High Court for a judicial inquiry, which looks at whether your detention is legal (see: “Going to the High Court”)
- if you are in hospital under an inpatient order, you also have a separate right to apply to a High Court Judge for what’s called a “writ of habeas corpus” – this is a long-established type of legal action you can use if you believe the police or other officials are holding you illegally.
Some of these review and appeal options are set out in further detail in the following sections.
