Civil Responsibility in Mental Health

Hello everyone!!....how you all are doing?....hope everything is going with the flow...

Today I am going to talk about a very serious and important yet very wrongly used (especially at present time) part of mental health. It's high time that we should prevent it firmly. We all know that in each and every different professions have some legal and ethical principles to maintain and guide the mankind into a right direction; likewise, there are legal and ethical issues in mental health as well.

Law comes in contact with mental health at many points, such as admission of a mentally ill person in a mental hospital, crime committed by a mentally ill person, validity of marriage, witness, will, consent, right to vote and drug dependence. Forensic psychiatry deals with the legal aspects of psychiatry.

In this post, I will talk about one of the 2 parts of legal aspects in mental health, which is - 

Civil Responsibility

There is usually a presumption in the favor of sanity and the contrary must be proved. This applies both to the civil and criminal proceedings in the court of law.

Marriage

The Hindu Marriage Act (Act 25 of 1955) provides for conditions, i.e., Section 5 (ii) introduced by Act 68 of 1976, states that 'at the time of the marriage, neither party - 

• is incapable of giving a valid consent..(due to)....unsoundness of mind; or

• though capable of giving consent, has been suffering from mental disorder of such a kind or to such an extent as to be unfit for marriage and the procreation of children; or

• has been subject to recurrent attacks of insanity or epilepsy.'

Any marriage solemnized in the contravention to this condition shall be voidable and maybe annulled by a decree of nullity under Section 12 of the Act.

Divorce can be granted under Section 13 of the Act on a petition presented by either spouse on the ground that the other party 'has been incurably of unsound mind or has been suffering continuously or intermittently from mental disorder of such kind and to such an extent that the petitioner cannot reasonably be expected to live with the respondent' (Section 13 (iii) inserted by Act 68 of 1976); here the term 'mental disorder' means mental illness, arrested or incomplete development of mind, psychopathic disorder or any other disorder or disability of mind and includes Schizophrenia. The term 'psychopathic disorder' means "a persistent disorder or disability of mind (whether or not including sub normality of intelligence) which results in abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct on the part of the other party and whether or not it requires or is susceptible to medical treatment".

Adoption

Under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (Act 78 of 1956), any Hindu male 'who is of sound mind and is not a minor' can adopt a child with the consent of his wife unless '...(she) has been declared by court...to be of unsound mind' (Section 7).

Similarly, any Hindu female 'who is of sound mind and is not a minor' and is not married, can adopt a child. If she is married, 'then her husband is dead, or has...renounced the world, or....ceased to be a Hindu, or....has been declared by a court...to be of unsound mind' (Section 8).

Witness

Under the Indian Evidence Act 1872, a 'lunatic' is not competent to give if he is prevented by virtue of his 'lunacy' from understanding the questions put to him and giving rational answers to them (Section 118). However, such a person can give evidence during a lucid interval on discretion of the judge and the jury.

Contract

Under the Indian Contract Act 1872 (Section 11), every person to be competent to contract must be a major and of sound mind. A person is said to be of sound mind for the purpose of a contract, if at the time of making a contract he is capable of understanding it and of forming a rational judgement as to its effect upon his interests.

Driving

It is important that advice be given regarding driving if there is likelihood that driving can be impaired by the nature of illness, prescribed medication and/or misuse of alcohol or drugs.

So to take any of these above mentioned steps, a person need to be of sound mind, in a stable mind to understand and have judgments about these. Likewise, a mental health professional need to be of sound mind as well, to have license to practice, to psycho-educate the people, to be a witness of a case and so on.

I hope you found this post helpful and interesting....will talk about other legal issues and acts in the next post....till then keep reading, stay safe....see you in the next post😀

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~ Mousumi Gayen