mirah@... wrote:

>René, I haven't read all of it yet, but it looks to me so far that this
>verdict is of little use to us. The "applicant" as the document calls
>her, was incarcerated involuntarily, also after reaching the age of
>majority, without any prior civil commitment. So the institutions that
>held her were guilty of unlawful detention.
>
The German courts up to the supreme court were of the opinion that it
was a lawful incarceration.
Here is the first good message: on the question of Human Rights there is
a court which is above the state level!
So the state, which normally defines what is lawful and what not, will
have to comply with the Human Rights convention.

> But the problem rampant
>throughout the world is not unlawful detention, it is lawful detention.
>Civil commitment is lawful. That's the problem. It shouldn't be, but it
>is. So from what I've read so far, this verdict does nothing for all the
>millions of people being held against their will by civil court order.
>
>If you disagree, can you explain why?
>
I disagree on various points:
a) we will have to read the verdict and the reasons of the verdict very
carefully together with our lawyer.
b) on the first impression it is very strong support for our view that
despite of any diagnoses - which is the most important point - if a
guardian or, according to the subsidiary principle, the prevailing
person with a representation agreement forbids the incarceration (not
only the forced treatment!!) it immediately becomes an illegal
deprivation of liberty if the person should nevertheless be incarcerated
in a psychiatric prison.
If the person is "dangerous", then he can ONLY be incarcerated on a
criminal suspicion like any other person, who is NOT diagnosed as
"mentally ill.

We have insisted on this interpretation of the law since the year 2000.
I reported about it at Tom Szasz´s birthday in my speech:
http://www.irrenoffensive.de/symposium.htm
The new verdict on the European level has empowered us very much and I
predict that it will become the dominant view in Europe.
The german "representation agreement" without exception (as the
Canadians sinisterly made it
http://www.qp.gov.bc.ca/statreg/stat/R/96405_01.htm ) will be Europe
wide the tool to crack the psychiatric "can".

Warm regards
rEne


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]