MENTAL DEFECTIVES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 420, 31 July 1928, Page 14

MENTAL DEFECTIVES

HOWARD LEAGUE WARNS AGAINST BILL DANGEROUS DEFINITIONS Press Association. WELLINGTON, Monday. The executive of the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Howard League for Penal Reform has expressed the opinion that certain provisions contained in the Mental Defectives Administration Bill called for revision and considerable modification. This related particularly to: (a) An extension of definition of a mentally defective person. (b) The constitution and functions of a board. (c) Compilation of register. The executive submits that the definition in Clause 7, of persons socially defective, is ambiguous and liable to serious misconstruction, and should be amended in terms of the British Amendment Act, 1927. The constitution of a board to include four departmental heads is objected to, it bPing considered that departmental officials, however efficient, should not be required to undertake thje onerous and exacting duties that confront the board in the compilation of the register and administration of the Act. Decisions on such important matters as registration should, it is held, be determined by a unanimous vote and the board should, as far as possible, consist of independent experts. The Bill does not make clear whether tlie board was an examining body or whether its functions were purely administrative. In the latter case no assurance was to be gained from the Bill that any adequate examining board, such as a travelling clinic, as advocated by Dr. dray in his recent report, will bo set up. It was most strongly urged that all reference to retardation should be eliminated from the Bill. In the respect of sterilisation, it cannot be too strongly emphasised sterilisation, without segregation, might be, from the point of view of morals and public health, highly dangerous. Segregation, on the other hand, rendered sterilisation unnecessary.