Newly introduced deprivation of liberty safeguards: anomalies and concerns

Abstract

Summary The European Court of Human Rights found that the care and treatment of HL in the ‘Bournewood case’ constituted infringement, in the form of deprivation of liberty, of his rights under Articles 5 (1) and 5 (4) of the European Convention on Human Rights. To prevent the infringement, the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards were introduced into the Mental Capacity Act 2005 via the Mental Health Act 2007. The recent implementation of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards on 1 April 2009 has exposed some anomalies and higlighted some difficulties in its implemention and application, and these are described in the paper.