Freedom and rights of persons with mental disabilities

Disadvantages of the law on the protection of persons with mental disabilities

Abstract

It has been two years from the adoption of the Law on the Protection of Persons with Mental Disabilities. Bearing in mind the necessity of improvement of protection of the rights of persons with mental disabilities, as well as issues facing the law enforcement, there is a need to examine existing solutions and to determine what should be changed. In that aim, considering main freedoms and rights of persons with mental disabilities, this paper is analyzing certain aspects of the protection of those persons, such as the question of their right to so called deinstitutionalization treatment; voluntary and involuntary accommodation of persons with mental disabilities in a psychiatric institutions; physical restraints and isolation; medical researches on persons with mental disabilities; status and treatment of persons with mental disabilities, perpetrators of criminal offences and misdemeanors; as well as the police treatment of the persons with mental disabilities. Summary contains certain given recommendations in the aim of the improvement of the normative framework in the field of protection of persons with mental disabilities.