Use of The Term "lunatic" in Legislation
In the British jurisdiction of England and Wales the Lunacy Acts 1890 - 1922 referred to lunatics, but the Mental Treatment Act 1930 changed the legal term to "Person of Unsound Mind", an expression which was replaced under the Mental Health Act 1959 by mental illness. "Person of unsound mind" was the term used in 1950 in the English version of the European Convention on Human Rights as one of the types of person who could be deprived of liberty by a judicial process. The 1930 act also replaced asylum with mental hospital. Criminal lunatics became Broadmoor patients in 1948 under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1947.
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Famous quotes containing the words term, lunatic and/or legislation:
“We term sleep a death ... by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.”
—Thomas Browne (1605–1682)
“What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“Statecraft is soulcraft. Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, much legislation is moral legislation because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres of life.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)