Lily McDermaid (LLB Law with Psychology) was awarded First Prize for her dissertation on how the English legal system protects the human rights of those with mental illnesses and how well it corresponds with contemporary psychiatric understanding.
Read more about her fascinating research below.
Dissertation Title
To what extent does the English legal system protect the human rights of those with mental illnesses and how well does this correspond with contemporary psychiatric understanding?
Dissertation Summary
The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the efficiency of the English legal system in protecting the human rights of those with mental health difficulties. This dissertation sets out to look comprehensively at areas of law in which the impact of mental illness is not often overtly considered. It highlights issues with strict adherence to psychiatric teachings and with application of the medical model. Instead, approaches which favour the mentally vulnerable are presented as more preferable, for the individual, their family and society. Throughout, psychological research is referred to in order to draw comparisons with the law. This dissertation concludes that the current state of the law is ineffective in protecting the human rights of individuals with psychiatric diagnoses. It is also concluded that the English legal system often fails to keep up with psychiatric understanding but that psychiatric understanding in itself cannot be the only consideration. Involvement of service users in decision-making is suggested in order to conquer this as well as more in-depth training for stakeholders in the legal system. It is also suggested that it is down to policy makers to bring about effective change in order to address the institutional discrimination against those with mental illnesses.
Description of Social Impact of Research
The dissertation provides a social commentary on the current state of affairs that people with mental illnesses find themselves in. In bringing together the subjective experiences of individuals and objective applications of the law, I encourage further research into the untold stories of oppression of those with mental illnesses. By emphasising individual experience, I have ensured that the people for whom the research is most personally relevant have not been forgotten.
In the current research pool, it is very rare to see such an interdisciplinary approach to mental health and the law as I looked at social factors, legal sources and psychological studies. This means that the conclusions drawn from it are much more wide-ranging than past research, which could lead to more varied applications and a higher rate of efficiency.
The main conclusion of the dissertation is that the English and Welsh legal system is not doing enough to safeguard the human rights of those with mental health difficulties. This highlights the need for change within the legislative sphere as well as the collective understanding of mental illness in the UK.
My dissertation lays the foundations for future programs of reform which would drastically improve the legal position of people with mental illnesses. I suggest several ways in which the English and Welsh legal jurisdiction needs to act in order to uphold the human rights of its citizens equally, regardless of a person’s mental health status. This includes suggesting practical changes as well as legal reforms that could improve the situation within the next few years. One of these is practical training courses to be delivered to lawyers and judges, so that they might better learn to accommodate and understand mental illness. If this were to be implemented and made mandatory, it could really improve the subjective experience of those with mental illnesses that are unlucky enough to be caught up in a legal battle. This would in turn improve their long-term mental health outcomes as well as preserve their human rights.
A thread throughout the dissertation project is also that all laws impact upon people with mental health issues and that this should be taken into account when forming new laws. This feeds into the necessity and wider impact of the suggested reforms, as they would have a positive impact on such a large portion of society. This is especially pertinent because of the constantly changing nature of mental health which means that anyone could benefit from changes to the law.