Abstract
Civil commitment is the legal process through which a state can deprive individuals of their liberty based on mental illness. Legal statues of civil commitment are as old as the first therapeutic asylums of the Western world. The evolutions of these standards over the last two centuries reflect the changing landscape of psychiatry, the law and social attitudes towards people with mental illness. In Sri Lanka, the Mental Diseases Ordinance codifies the statuary standards of civil commitment. The current legislature dates back to the Lunacy Ordinance of 1873. The law as it stands was last amended in 1956. The historical development of the civil commitment standards of the current Mental Diseases Ordinance of Sri Lanka reflects similar developments that took place in English mental health law in the 19th and 20th Century. This article summarises the development of civil commitment standards from early 19 th century to modern times in Sri Lanka.
Highlights
Civil commitment is the legal process through which a state can deprive individuals of their liberty based on mental illness.[1]
The colonial government and the postindependence governments incorporated 12 amendments to the original ordinance influenced by the evolving English standards as well as by an awareness of the suffering of those with mental illness
The major revision of the mental health law in 1956 can be considered as the best effort made to bring the legislature on par with modern standards of mental health care
Summary
Civil commitment is the legal process through which a state can deprive individuals of their liberty based on mental illness.[1]. Regulation No 3 of 1839 was the first law of civil commitment in Sri Lanka.[21] Incarceration of the mentally ill in jails (without a criminal conviction) prior to this ordinance is most likely to have occurred under the predecessors of the current vagrancy act.[22] In a submission to the Executive Council on the 29th November 1839, the Governor of Ceylon states thatinsane persons in the common gaol‘, are asource of great annoyance to the prisoners and the other inmates‘ He appeals to the council members to enact the law consideringdistress and misery‘ of insane persons being cared for in improper establishments.[23]. The 1956 amendment for the first time allowed the civil commitment of individuals to take place without formal judicial procedure with the involvement of medial practitioners only
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