Search

Using two randomized controlled courtroom experiments on actual litigants at court hearings, we examine a thus far unexplored reason why perceived procedural justice can be strongly associated with litigants' trust in judges and legitimate power assigned to judges. We argue that because litigants try to make sense of what is happening at their hearings, they will tend to inhibit ongoing action in order to pause and check what is going on in the courtroom. During this state of behavioral inhibition, experiences of how fairly judges are treating them will have a sturdy impact on litigants’ reactions. This explanation implies that an experimental manipulation known to weaken behavioral inhibition should attenuate the positive association between perceived procedural justice and trust and legitimacy ratings. The results of both experiments support this line of reasoning. We discuss the implications for the understanding of the psychology of procedural justice and the robustness of priming effects in experimental social psychology.

Independent experts serve a vital role in how the human rights of patients are protected in mental health law. This article investigates the contribution of court-appointed psychiatrists (APs) in civil commitment court hearings. Analysis is based on 12 court hearings that were audiotaped. Supplementary informal interviews with participants were also conducted. Data were analysed through a combination of rhetoric analysis and discourse analysis. Analysis of the hearings reveals that APs do not fulfil their function to critically investigate treating psychiatrists’ (CPs) recommendations that patients meet commitment criteria. They typically do not ask any questions from CPs, and the few questions that are asked do not cast light on the legal issues at stake. To further understand the role of APs, their communication has been analyzed in terms of four interpretative repertoires: collegial, disclosing, therapeutic and mediating. In conclusion, the human rights of patients subjected to involuntary commitment might be at risk when therapeutic concerns are built into the process. The specific Swedish model where APs deliver their own assessment about whether commitment criteria are met may be counterproductive. This argument possibly extends to the role of medical members in mental health tribunals in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand., This article belongs to the Special Issue The Intersection of Human Rights Law and Health Law

Compulsory community care (CCC) was introduced in Sweden in 2008. This article investigates all written court decisions regarding CCC over a 6 month period in 2009 (N = 541). The purpose is to examine how the legal rights of patients are protected and what forms of social control patients are subjected to. 51% of CCC patients are women and 84% are being treated for a psychosis-related disorder. In the court decisions, only 9% of patients are described as dangerous to themselves, while 18% are regarded a danger to others. The most common special provisions that patients are subjected to are medication (79%) and a requirement that they must maintain contact with either community mental health services (51%) or social services (27%). In the decisions, both the courts and court-appointed psychiatrists agree with treating psychiatrists in 99% of cases. Decisions lack transparency and clarity, and it is often impossible to understand the conclusions of the courts. There is considerable variation between regional courts as regards the provisions to which patients are subjected and the delegation of decision-making to psychiatrists. This means that decisions fail to demonstrate clarity, transparency, consistency and impartiality, and thus fail to meet established standards of procedural fairness. Surveillance techniques of social control are more common than techniques based on therapy or sanctions. Because of the unique role of medication, social control is primarily imposed on a physical dimension, as opposed to temporal and spatial forms. The article concludes that patients are at risk of being subjected to new forms of social control of an unclear nature without proper legal protection.

The subject matter of this study is professional discourse concerning psychiatric assessments, particularly those relating to compulsory care. Discursive practices in two institutional settings are compared, namely a psychiatric clinic and an administrative court. In Sweden, psychiatric coercion is regulated in the Compulsory Psychiatric Care Act (Sw: LPT), introduced in 1992. This new law was designed to improve patients' legal rights. The most important change was the introduction of obligatory court hearings to try psychiatrists' decisions to apply compulsory care. An important aim of the study is to investigate how psychiatric cases are recontextualised in the new legal setting. Eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork was carried out at two psychiatric units: an emergency/admission unit and a closed, so called LPT unit. In court, fourteen LPT hearings were audiotaped. At the clinic, staff to a large extent use vernacular terminology to describe patients. Furthermore, personal knowledge of each patient is an important interpretative framework. The meaning of descriptions depends on the local context. The discourse at the clinic often follows a circular logic: one has to assume illness in order to construe descriptions of symptoms as indications of illness. When clinicians apply legal criteria, their primary concern is to act according to a clinical conception of what is in the best interests of the patient. Occasionally, they may set aside what they believe is required by law in order to conform to clinical priorities. Thus, staff often seek informal solutions to clinical problems. To clinicians, LPT may also become a tool to solve certain organisational problems related to, for example, issues of transferring patients. In LPT court hearings, the patient is formally an adverse party to a chief psychiatrist. The analysis suggests, however, that the status of patient becomes crucial also in the court discourse. Several features, which can be associated with a cli