April 23, 2005
Lobbying Alert regarding the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities
Drafted by Myra Kovary, UN Representative from Support Coalition International and
Celia Brown, Un Representative, President of Support Coalition International, Tina Minkowitz, co-chairperson of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry and member of the Steering Committee of the International Disability Caucus
To the: President, Prime Minister, Department of State, Delegates to the United Nations
We, as members of Support Coalition International and/or The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, urge you to oppose the inclusion of any language in the new United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that would allow for mental health and/or psychiatric treatment to be forced upon an individual against his or her will. The text as proposed by the Working Group in Articles 10 and 11 specifically calls for an end to involuntary hospitalization and involuntary treatment. There has been significant discussion by the governmental delegations to allow for exceptions to be made to this prohibition under what they term “exceptional circumstances” and with “appropriate legal safeguards” when it is “in the best interest of the person.” This language refers to civil commitment for persons who are mentally ill and are considered to be a danger to themselves or others. As users and survivors of psychiatry, we have experienced involuntary hospitalization and involuntary treatment and consider such “treatment” to be a total violation of our human rights and dignity and our experience is that such treatment is tantamount to torture. [**Insert your own thinking on the subject and/or your own experience here.] No amount of legal safeguards can reverse the fact that our human rights are being violated by “treating” us against our will. This Convention is entitled “A Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protecting and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities.” We urge you to support the position of the International Disability Caucus that prohibits involuntary hospitalization and involuntary treatment and protects the human rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities.
[** Some suggested concepts to include are as follows:
1) Persons who are considered to be a danger to others should be dealt with by the criminal justice system. Any separate system for involuntarily detaining people is clearly discriminatory.
2) Persons who are considered to be a danger to themselves would be much better served by a voluntary system of services than by involuntary hospitalization and involuntary treatment. Our experience of involuntary treatment is that it is so cruel and degrading that many of us have committed suicide as a result of being treated in this manner. Those of us who have managed to survive this torture feel obligated to speak on behalf of our brothers and sisters who have not survived or who are severely disabled by their experience of forced treatment.]
We also urge you to support the position of the International Disability Caucus on issues addressed in Article 9 regarding the right to legal capacity. We oppose the notion that the State must protect us by assigning guardians to make decisions for us. We advocate using a model of supported decision-making as opposed to the commonly used model of substituted decision-making. In the substituted decision-making model the legal capacity of the person is taken away and passed over to another person (a guardian or representative) who from then on will make decisions on the person’s behalf. In the supported-decision-making model, the person with a disability maintains their legal capacity and the support system is obligated to try to communicate with the person and to facilitate the person’s exercise of choice and decision-making. Full legal capacity with availability of supported decision-making is crucial for persons with psychosocial disabilities to protect ourselves from abuse and to exercise our civil rights in all areas.
We users and survivors of psychiatry are counting on this Convention to end the discrimination that we experience on a daily basis and to promote and protect our human rights. Ending this discrimination will involve finding creative solutions to address some of the issues facing persons with disabilities and the issues facing the States in their attempts to protect us. It is totally unacceptable to use this Convention to simply codify existing mental health laws and practices.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
XXXX