Dear all,
 
Some of you might be interested to read the Vic Law Reform Commission Report on the desirability of Guardianship Laws in Vic. It's just been tabled by the Attorney General and looks set to shape the way guardianship reform happens in Aus. for the next decade or two (or three!).
 
http://www.lawreform.vic.gov.au/inquiries/guardianship
 
Anyone hoping to find a map on Australia's transition to a supported decision making regime will be disappointed. Remember too, Vic guardianship and mental health laws tend to set the agenda for national reform, so this might be a forerunner for the nation.
 
(QUICK CLARIFIER FOR THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT i'M ON ABOUT: Supported Decision Making is the idea that instead of making someone's decision for them when they might have some difficulty making decisions, that person receives support, if they want, to exercise choice themselves. It acknowledges that none of us make decisions in a vacuum, and it also ackowledges that just as wheel chair user's may require ramps to, say, access banks on an equal basis with others, that equally, those with decision making difficulties for whatever reason - mental stress, intellectual impairment, brain injury, surviving trauma etc. - may require social 'ramps' to assist them to make decisions themselves. It is meant to remedy the either/or approach of mental health and most guardianship law; that is, either you're capacble or your not, and if your not, this guardian [or 'clinical guardian' as with psychiatrists under mental health law] decides for you - substitute decision making. That's a crude summary.)
 
It's a huge report - 600 pages, 440 recommendations. Surprisingly, they do not engage at all with the CRPD Committee's comments on making a transition from a substituted decision making regime to a supported decision making one (despite it being compiled over three years). They also did not weigh into the debate as to whether mental health legislation is unjustly discriminatory against persons with psychosocial disability (casting aside the issue as ‘a matter for ongoing debate’) (24.63). Instead, the LRC offers an option in which there is greater overlap between the two statutes. Unfortunately that overlap is only in terms of shifting the locus of power for substituted decision making. It seems the major change this will have to mental health legislation is to authorise for the power of an enduring personal guardian to make psychiatric treatment decisions over and above psychiatrists under the MHA 1986. But this can only happen where a person has involuntary status but is not seen to pose harm to other members of the community (in other words, if the psychiatrist thinks a person fits the 'risk to self or others' then the psychiatrists power reigns). They certainly aren't shifting any paradigms. It's disapppointing to see an independent statutory body - whose recommendations don't have to be taken up by government - being so conservative.
 
However, they recommend some new options for supported decision making in chapter 8 where supporters can be formally recognised and put on an online register so that third parties (banks, hospitals, for example) will recognise supporters as information-gatherers for the person being supported. Also, the co-decision making arrangements are worth a look. They really sit in the grey area between substitute and supported decision making. And on that note, I actually sense that some of the arrangments being proposed that are called substituted decision making would be called supported decision making in some people's minds. To their credit, they make a clear distinction between supported decision making and substituted decision making (compare this to the mental health law reform report which stated that getting the second opinion of a psychiatrist within three months of an involuntary order being made was supported decision making). At least their honest! But that's little reassurance in what seems like a bit of a missed opportunity for Australia.
 
Its a shame too because I've heard really good things about how Vic Guardianship works for most people with decision making impairments - even from no-force mh activists. 
 
Regards,
Piers

Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic

·       New Members 1

Visit Your Group

Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use