key: cord-354039-2fwy9z19
authors: Kelly, Brendan D.; Drogin, Eric; McSherry, Bernadette; Donnelly, Mary
title: Mental health, mental capacity, ethics and the law in the context of Covid-19 (coronavirus)
date: 2020-10-01
journal: Int J Law Psychiatry
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2020.101632
sha: 
doc_id: 354039
cord_uid: 2fwy9z19

The emergence of the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic in late 2019 and early 2020 presented new and urgent challenges to mental health services and legislators around the world. This special issue of the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry explores mental health law, mental capacity law, and medical and legal ethics in the context of Covid-19. Papers are drawn from India, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Portugal and the United States. Together, these articles demonstrate the complexity of psychiatric and legal issues prompted by Covid-19 in terms of providing mental health care, protecting rights, exercising decision-making capacity and a range of other topics. While further work is needed in many of these areas, these papers provide a strong frame-work for addressing key issues and meeting the challenges that Covid-19 and, possibly, other outbreaks are likely to present in the future.

health law, mental capacity law, and medical and legal ethics. The range of possible implications is broad and includes actual or proposed emergency legislation, negative ramifications for the human rights of people with mental illness or impaired mental capacity, the pandemic"s potential impact on justice for these populations and various implications for legal and forensic practice in psychiatry.

There is strong research evidence that people with mental illness are at increased risk of poor health outcomes and experience limited access to healthcare. The law is a critical tool in achieving health justice. This special issue seeks to explore and elucidate the ways in which Covid-19 and, finally, Freckelton (2020) discusses "fear, quackery, false representations and the law" -issues that are especially acute at the present time.

As editors, we are delighted with the interest shown in this special issue and the diversity of papers published. Taken together, this collection demonstrates clearly the complexity of psychiatric and legal issues prompted by Covid-19, ranging from providing mental health care to protecting rights, from exercising decision-making capacity to ensuring the provision of accurate, reliable information to those who need it. While there will undoubtedly be further work on many of these topics, the papers collected here provide a strong framework for addressing key areas and meeting the challenges that continues to present to psychiatry and the law.

Isolation of patients in psychiatric hospitals in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: An ethical, legal, and practical challenge

Forensic mental telehealth assessment (FMTA) in the context of COVID-19

Mental health and capacity laws in Northern Ireland and the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining powers, procedures and protections under emergency legislation

COVID-19: Fear, quackery, false representations and the law

Domestic violence against women and the COVID-19 pandemic: What is the role of psychiatry?

Emergency mental health legislation in response to the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic in Ireland: Urgency, necessity and proportionality

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the precipitation of intimate partner violence

COVID-19 and forced alcohol abstinence in India: The dilemmas around ethics and rights

Capacity in the time of coronavirus

Scottish mental health and capacity law: The normal, pandemic and "new normal

It's about how much we can do, and not how little we can get away with": Coronavirus-related legislative changes for social care in the United Kingdom