Japanese Diet decided to carry the reform bill of Mental Health Act to the next session, at the plenary session of House of Representatives on 16 June 2017. So, we completely blocked passage of the reform bill in this session of Diet. It is historical victory for us to block the passage of the reform bill, which is the administrative policy of the prime minister.
We, Japan National Group of Mentally Disabled People, have made a solidarity with organizations of persons with disabilities throughout Japan and achieved popularizing a problem which is intensifing forced admissions in mental hospital to prevent crimes, as an issue related to persons with disabilities by always making this topic for discussion at meetings about a murder in an institution for persons with disabilities in Sagamihara, Kanagawa prefecture on 26 July 2016.
We have intensively lobbied since before introduced the reform bill of MHA in the Diet. At first the reform bill was considered to have a few points to discuss and was prior consideration at the House of Councilors, but it was discussed approximately 36 hours, which is twice as that of the bill of criminal conspiracy act, and became one of the most important bills along with the problem of Moritomo and Kake schools and the bill of criminal conspiracy act.
In addition, we achieved participations of persons with disabilities in the legislative body, for example a person with psychosocial disabilities became an expert witness before Diet. We guided to an abolition of the MHA which is our real goal, by pointing out that a forced hospitalization is a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
However, we failed to make the reform bill scrapped in this session of Diet. If we block passage of the reform bill of MHA in the next session, we will get another chance to make it scrapped.
The reform bill of MHA must be scrapped. Never give up and let’s fight until achieve our real goal.
Best wishes,
