EN I DE

The first and most important goal of any reform effort in psychiatry must be the unconditional* abolition of the special mental health laws. They legalise and thus make possible

• psychiatric compulsory hospitalisation
• forced psychiatric treatment
• incapacitation, which is misleadingly called "care" because it can be imposed by the courts against the declared will of the person concerned
• a special criminal law with an unlimited sentence and compulsory psychiatric treatment in the so-called "forensic" ward

Confinement in a closed ward of a psychiatric hospital and compulsory psychiatric treatment may only take place if this has been stipulated in a living will signed with a free will, i.e. if the treatment fulfils and does not contradict the will of the person concerned.

We call on the governments and parliaments of the Länder and on the federal level in Germany to implement the corresponding legislative procedures now in order to finally guarantee Human Rights as they have applied since 1948 and have been spelled out by the ratified UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities since 2009.
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* Unconditionally, because human rights are indivisible. For example it would be absurd to make freedom from torture dependent on any conditions.