Maryam Bucheery
After the project had been in the assembly for 9 years, the deputies ended up passing the mental health bill despite its importance as it aims to fill a legislative void, in one of the most important sectors of medicine, where the law regulates governmental and private mental health facilities, patient rights and the duties of medical professionals in this field. The draft law also regulates how to enter mental health facilities, whether it is voluntary entry, compulsory entry, or placement according to judicial rulings or orders.
And punishable within the law by imprisonment or a fine not exceeding one thousand dinars, any doctor who proves in the reports, certificates or statements issued by him, what contradicts the reality regarding the psychological state of a person with the intention of entering one of the facilities designated for the detention or removal of mental patients, or for any other purpose. Article 59 stipulates that anyone who imprisons or causes the detention of a person as suffering from a mental illness in other than mental health facilities, or in other places chosen within the framework of community care, shall be punished by imprisonment and a fine of no less than one thousand dinars.
It is also punishable by imprisonment for a period of no less than two years and a fine of no less than one thousand dinars, or by one of these two penalties, whoever deliberately enables a person subject to entry procedures or compulsory treatment to escape, or helps him to do so, concealing him by himself or through others, and the same penalty shall be imposed on whoever informs One of the competent authorities, falsely and with bad intent, accused a person that he had a mental illness.
