Can Judicial Habeas Corpus Relief Break the Cage of Social Stigma?

"Hello, is this the Taiwan Association for Human Rights? I've been locked up in the Bali Psychiatric Center. The procedure is completely unreasonable, and I need a lawyer's help!" A young yet steady voice came through the receiver, punctuated by a per-minute beep indicating he was calling for help from a public phone. The teenager straightforwardly recounted the steps of how he was locked up, responding immediately and affirmatively to questions while quickly grasping the intent of the conversation. He was the first teenager surnamed Huang to visit Cheng Chieh. When he sought help from our organization, the Ministry of Health and Welfare's "Mental Illness Compulsory Evaluation and Compulsory Community Treatment Review Committee" had already classified him as a "severe patient" with a mental illness. Hanging up the phone, a flurry of questions arose: why was a teenager who communicated quite normally treated as a "severe patient" simply because he went to see Cheng Chieh? What went wrong in the doctor's diagnosis and review process? Too many facts needed to be clarified.

According to the Mental Health Act, a "severe patient" refers to someone who exhibits bizarre thoughts and peculiar behaviors disconnected from reality, to the extent of being unable to handle their own affairs, and who presents a risk of harming others or themselves. The teenager stated that the main reason he was sent in was simply "hitting a family member." However, for the past few months, he had been living alone in a rental apartment—how could he have harmed a family member? Through cross-referencing various clues, the content of the teenager's statements was supported by foundational facts, showing he was not disconnected from reality and exhibited no self-harming or suicidal actions or speech. Furthermore, he could make two to three calls a day to seek help, proving he was capable of handling his own affairs.

At first glance, the teenager barely met any of the legal criteria for a "severe patient." However, the media had already dubbed him the "demon-visiting teenager," accusing him of being a "Cheng Chieh fan." Coupled with the pre-existing, socially constructed, and long-stigmatized identities of "mental patients" and "severe patients," if the facts were not uncovered and the various labels stripped away at this moment, the teenager would be imprisoned in the foreseeable future within multiple cages of "stigma" with no hope of redemption.

Collaborating with groups such as the Taiwan Association for Children's and Teenagers' Rights and the Rehabilitation Association for Social Psychiatry, our organization attempted rescue through various channels. Eventually, two lawyers successfully applied to the Shilin District Court for the first non-criminal "habeas corpus" case based on the human rights protection framework of the Constitution, the Two Covenants, and the new Habeas Corpus Act. Judge Chieh-An Ch'en (陳介安) bravely accepted the case, allowing the administrative decision of compulsory hospitalization for a "severe patient" under the Mental Health Act to seek relief through judicial channels.

Regrettably, although the presiding judge practiced the habeas corpus procedure and conducted a careful investigation during the process, he failed to note the crucial function of a habeas corpus ruling—namely, to correct the illegality of the arresting authority and thereby remove the stigmatization and labeling of the party caused by the grounds for detention. The judge in this case focused primarily on reconciling the social resource disposal methods for the teenager after his discharge, seeking to reach a settlement among the parties, the hospital, and the lawyers. The court's refusal to issue a formal ruling not only failed to point out the procedural deficiencies of units such as the New Taipei City Social Welfare Department, the Bali Psychiatric Center, and the Department of Health's review committee, but also left the party vulnerable to continued moral attacks by society based on his conduct or physical and mental condition. The court took note of liberty, and even of discharge placement irrelevant to habeas corpus, but lost the justice that the court ought to have returned to society and the individual.

Although the teenager surnamed Huang argued in court that he was hospitalized voluntarily, under the operation of society as a whole functioning as a "total institution," the extent of his autonomous space to exercise so-called voluntariness remains a major question. Through this habeas corpus procedure, physical personal liberty was gained, but as long as the status of "severe patient" is not lifted, and the process of societal stigmatization against him remains unaddressed, this habeas corpus proceeding has not truly returned justice to him.

(This article was slightly edited by the Apple Daily Forum editors and published in the Apple Forum on June 17, 2014; this is the original full text)