Italy’s top court rules part of involuntary psychiatric law unconstitutional; CCHR urges U.S. to adopt legal protections as WHO, UN, and global courts move to eliminate coercive mental health practices.
By CCHR International
The Mental Health Industry Watchdog
June 13, 2025
- Italy’s Constitutional Court struck down a key provision of its psychiatric law, declaring involuntary detainment without court access and legal representation unconstitutional—marking a major human rights precedent.
- CCHR International calls the ruling groundbreaking for Europe, urging the U.S. to adopt similar legal protections and ultimately abolish forced psychiatric treatment, citing rising rates of involuntary detentions outpacing population growth 3 to 1.
- Global pressure is mounting: WHO’s April 2025 policy guidance and the UN mandate the end of coercive mental health practices, affirming the right to refuse treatment and demand legal rights.
- CCHR’s international advocacy is driving change—from securing compensation rights in Hungary for victims of unlawful psychiatric detention to helping expose child electroshock abuse in New Zealand, now formally recognized by its government.
In what is being widely reported as a landmark human rights decision, Italy’s Constitutional Court in May 2025 struck down part of the country’s decades-old psychiatric law—Article 35 of Law 833/1978—declaring some of its provisions for involuntary detainment unconstitutional. The ruling affirms that individuals subjected to compulsory psychiatric hospitalization must have the right to challenge such detention in court with legal representation.[1]
The decision is an essential step toward achieving human rights in the mental health field. CCHR chapters worldwide are intensifying efforts to urge courts and lawmakers to follow suit and ultimately abolish forced psychiatric hospitalization and treatment. The group called on the United States to replicate—and expand—such protections.
In the U.S., the practice of forced psychiatric detainment has sharply escalated. According to David Cohen, professor of social welfare at UCLA’s Luskin School, involuntary psychiatric detentions have increased at a rate three times higher than population growth in recent years.[2]
A 2023 report, Involuntary Civil Commitment: Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Protections, posted on Congress.gov, underscores that such commitments “implicate constitutional concerns and constraints under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” particularly regarding the liberty interests of confined individuals. Yet, it notes the U.S. Supreme Court has never conclusively ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees all such protections.[3]
While the Italian court ruling is significant, it stops short of banning Trattamento Sanitario Obbligatorio (TSO), the Italian legal framework for compulsory psychiatric hospitalization.[4] The U.S. similarly authorizes involuntary psychiatric treatment through legislative orders. In both countries, forced interventions remain legal despite mounting ethical criticisms.
Coercion in mental health settings has increasingly drawn global condemnation. Critics argue that forced psychiatric treatment fundamentally violates human dignity and autonomy.[5] A 2023 study in BMC Psychiatry concluded that coercion is incompatible with human rights and “should be avoided as far as possible.”[6] That same year, The Lancet warned that coercive psychiatric practices override patients’ fundamental rights, and that approaches to reduce coercion are possible, and the cost of implementing them is minimal compared to the damage caused by forced interventions.[7]
Italy’s decision follows another recent victory involving CCHR efforts in Europe. In Hungary, CCHR collaborated with legal experts to secure a Constitutional Court ruling that found Parliament had failed to provide legal avenues for individuals unlawfully detained in psychiatric facilities to seek compensation. Following sustained advocacy by CCHR Hungary, the Court and the President of the Republic, a new regulation was enacted on December 20, 2024, guaranteeing—for the first time—the legal right to compensation for victims of unlawful psychiatric detention.[8]
CCHR’s international work continues to gain recognition. On June 2, 2025, New Zealand CCHR volunteer Victor Boyd was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit by King Charles III. The honor recognized his 50-year campaign with CCHR to expose coercive psychiatric practices, particularly those used against children at the now-closed Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital’s Child and Adolescent Unit. Boyd’s relentless advocacy through CCHR helped prompt a formal government acknowledgement of the abuse and torture carried out under psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks. The award is endorsed by the New Zealand Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Cabinet.[9]
Momentum is also growing at the global policy level. The World Health Organization (WHO) released a Guidance on Mental Health Policy and Strategic Action Plan in April 2025, recommending the prohibition of involuntary psychiatric practices—including forced hospitalization and treatment—and affirming individuals’ right to refuse such treatment. The WHO and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have repeatedly called for mental health systems to move away from coercion and adopt rights-respecting, support-based alternative approaches.
These international reforms are grounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which Italy ratified in 2009. The CRPD explicitly rejects coercive interventions in mental health care. Its General Comment No. 1 affirms that all individuals—regardless of disability status—retain full legal capacity and must be supported, not substituted, in making decisions about their lives and health.[10]
Since its founding, CCHR has worked alongside survivors, whistleblowers, and international legal experts to expose systemic psychiatric abuse and advocate for transparent, non-coercive mental health care. The growing international rulings, government acknowledgements, and awards highlight a turning tide—and CCHR says now is the time for the United States to implement legal reforms that respect the rights, liberty, and dignity of all individuals in mental health settings.
[1] “CCHR Encourages Italy to Complete Full Mental Health Reform After Court Ruling on Forced Treatment,” European Times, 5 June 2025, https://europeantimes.news/2025/06/cchr-italy-full-mental-health-reform-court-ruling-forced-treatment/
[2] https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/656273520/new-who-mental-health-guideline-condemns-coercive-psychiatric-practices; “Study finds involuntary psychiatric detentions on the rise,” UCLA Newsroom, 3 Nov. 2020, https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/involuntary-psychiatric-detentions-on-the-rise
[3] Hannah-Alise Rogers, “Involuntary Civil Commitment: Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Protections,” Health Care; Law, Constitution & Civil Liberties, 24 May 2023, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47571
[4] “CCHR Encourages Italy to Complete Full Mental Health Reform After Court Ruling on Forced Treatment,” European Times, 5 June 2025, https://europeantimes.news/2025/06/cchr-italy-full-mental-health-reform-court-ruling-forced-treatment/
[5] “CCHR Encourages Italy to Complete Full Mental Health Reform After Court Ruling on Forced Treatment,” European Times, 5 June 2025, https://europeantimes.news/2025/06/cchr-italy-full-mental-health-reform-court-ruling-forced-treatment/
[6] Eva Brekke, et al., “Patients’ experiences with coercive mental health treatment in Flexible Assertive Community Treatment: a qualitative study,” BMC Psychiatry, 18 Oct. 2023, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37853402/
[7] Beate Wild, et al., “Reduction of coercion in psychiatric hospitals: how can this be achieved?” The Lancet, Dec. 2023, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(23)00214-4/fulltext
[8] https://www.cchrint.org/2025/05/17/apa-faces-outrage-child-deaths-mental-health-failure/
[9] “King’s Birthday Honours: Advocate dedicates award to survivors of abuse in care,” RNZ, 2 June 2025, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/562817/king-s-birthday-honours-advocate-dedicates-award-to-survivors-of-abuse-in-care; “Abuses in psychiatric care: The shameful story of the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent unit in Aotearoa New Zealand,” Aust N Z J Psychiatry, 2023 Sep;57(9):1193-1197, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10466991/; https://www.cchrint.org/2021/07/01/cchrs-work-acknowledged-nz-inquiry-lake-alice-psychiatric-child-torture/
[10] “CCHR Encourages Italy to Complete Full Mental Health Reform After Court Ruling on Forced Treatment,” European Times, 5 June 2025, https://europeantimes.news/2025/06/cchr-italy-full-mental-health-reform-court-ruling-forced-treatment/
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