Mental health tribunals : rights, protection, or treatment? : lessons from the ARC linkage grant study?

This article reports possible operational or policy implications for Mental Health Tribunals ('MHTs') of findings from a multi-year Australian collaborative study of mental health review tribunals in three jurisdictions (Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory) undertaken in conjunction with the New South Wales Law and Justice Foundation. Recognising the tension between human rights and clinical benchmarks for the care and treatment of mental health consumers and resource constraints in the service system and resources for review bodies alike, the paper reflects on stakeholder and consumer concerns about access to quality treatment and associated support services, review of treatment adequacy and drug regimes, and their 'participation' or dignity of engagement in review processes. Building on earlier arguments in favour of equipping MHTs to adequately engage the clinical and social domains in addition to the domain of legal rectitude, and for 'flexibility' of process more characteristic of case-conferencing modes, this article also reviews some alternative or supplementary policy pathways for supporting the work of MHTs, including advocacy and dispute resolution machinery.