Civil commitment: Due process, procedural fairness and the quality of decision‐making

Abstract

The Supreme Court decisions on civil commitment legislation in Western Australia in EO v Mental Health Review Board [2000] WASC 203 and in Victoria in RW v Mental Health Review Board [2000] VSC 404 enunciate an insistence that fairness and due process be adhered to in determining whether mental health patients should be involuntarily detained – in particular, that patients ordinarily should have access to their clinical files before review board decisions, and that involuntary detention within the community concludes on the date that a community treatment order expires, unless it has previously been revoked, discharged or extended. To this extent, they consolidate a tradition of construing t..