Ruling on legal challenges on behalf of mentally ill

Legal challenges on behalf of mentally disturbed people being detained in hospital — and who are unable to give instructions to lawyers — should only be brought where there has been a gross abuse of power or failure of fundamental requirements in relation to their liberty, the Court of Appeal has said.

The court was echoing previous comments made by High and Supreme Court judges in dismissing an application seeking the release of a mentally ill man who stabbed a fellow patient in the neck with a knife at a Dublin hospital in May 2010.

The injury left the man paralysed below the neck and he died eight months later. The attacker was initially charged with assault causing serious harm and, after the death, with murder.