Miscellaneous

Method to the Madness: Some Fool Tried It

By Anne Skove, Esq.

If you've ever giggled at the directions on product labels, you know there are some pretty crazy rules out there. They exist for a reason even sillier than the rules themselves: because some fool tried it, or is about to...

Not to make light of the issue, but it is the same (to some extent) with human rights. If you've ever read a guide to mental health patient or inmate rights, you were probably (hopefully) amazed that some of these obvious things -- the right to hot, edible meals or the right to be free of humiliating treatment -- needed to be written down. Again, they're set to the page because some fool tried it.

It has come to light that people who complained about corruption in China were civilly (?) committed. Hospital staff (?) forcibly medicated them against their will. (It's hard to find the proper words to use here, hence the question marks.)

This treatment is in addition to the initial cause of the citizen complaints -- police beatings, damaged property, and other grievances. Others were hospitalized for practicing their chosen religion. In sum, a broken system.

See Locked Up for Complaining in China, Chris Hogg, BBC (December 10, 2008); Whistleblowers Sent to Mental Ward, Chinese Paper Says, Andrew Jacobs, International Herald Tribune (December 8, 2008).

Jurisdictions are forever re-examining their probate and civil commitment procedures and laws. Employers are constantly revisiting their policies protecting whistleblowers. If some of the rules and policies seem extraneous, recall why they were written down in the first place.

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on December 10, 2008 (boomark / email).