On Legal Issues Of Social Assistance For Mental Patients In China

Any civilized society should provide its members with fundamental rights protection. Social assistance system serves as the last defense line of social security. According to related statistics, the number of Chinese mental patients has been above one hundred million. The phenomenon that basic rights of mental patients are infringed like captivity and abuse occurs frequently. Presently, Chinese law on mental patients social assistance is not systematic, lack of sufficient social protection for this group of people. Also, the rights of social assistance for mental patients are not specific. The author thinks that social assistance for mental patient should be an institution that any social member, suffering from mental diseases, can receive social assistance services from country when in need. This paper tries to analyze our related legal issues on social assistance system for mental patients in the aspects of definition of social assistance for mental patients, current situation and problem of related law, study of related foreign law system and legal improvement of our social assistance for mental patients.This thesis is divided into four parts as followed.The First Part:Definition of Social Assistance for Mental Patients. Through discussing definitions of mental diseases, social assistance and social assistance for mental patients, this part tries to ascertain the basic content of social assistance, to analyze essential characteristic of the social assistance system for mental patients, and to build independent value of social assistance for mental patients.The Second Part:Current Situation and Problem of Related Law on Social Assistance for Mental Patients. This part has four sections. First, this part lists and illustrates related law articles on social assistance for mental patients. Second, it demonstrates the enforcement effectiveness of mental patients social assistance law by gathering data. Third, it analyzes mental patients’rights protection in the aspects of living state, medical aid state and rights protection state. Forth, it concludes the defects of social assistance for mental patients which mainly reflects in legislation, assistance system, assistance foundation and compulsory treatment.The Third Part:Study of Related Foreign Law System on Mental Patient Social Assistance. This part focus on foreign basic situation of social assistance legislation for mental patients, foreign protection conditions of social assistance for mental patients and foreign executive program of community rescue for mental patients, to absorb their merits for our country.The Forth Part:Legal Improvement of Our Social Assistance for Mental Patients. This part puts forward improvement suggestions from five aspects:first, improve related legislation, strengthen specialized assistance and detail the articles on rights protection; second, establish special fund for mental patients social assistance, providing strong material base for assistance activities; third, upgrade community rescue system for mental patients in order to realize community recovery; forth, formulate compulsory treatment system for mental patients such as affirmation standard, decision subject and hearing procedure; fifth, enrich the legal content of social assistance for mental patients such as economic assistance, medical assistance and community assistance.