On November 25, 2016 Alex was invited to teach professional responsibility and mental health at the Windsor Law Mental Health and the Law course. Topics included capacity to instruct counsel, confidentiality, duty of loyalty, disability accommodation and the difference between best interests and client interests. […]
Tag: Psychiatric Hospitalization and Restrictions of Liberty
Mercedes successfully represented the appellant in an appeal from a decision of the Ontario Review Board. The Board had downgraded the appellant’s conditional discharge to a detention order. On appeal, the Court of Appeal for Ontario agreed that the Board’s decision was unreasonable and restored the appellant’s conditional discharge. Read the Court of Appeal’s decision […]
Joining other leading practitioners in the field of mental health law, Mercedes and Alex presented at the Law Society’s Practice Before the Consent and Capacity Board conference. Mercedes spoke on the topic of law reform and Charter challenges to mental health legislation. Alex’s paper was presented with practical tips on funding for a mental health law […]
Kelley successfully represented a client with mental health issues before the Court of Appeal for Ontario. The case of Re Osawe was an appeal from a decision of the Ontario Review Board. On appeal, the Court of Appeal decided for the first time that the Board must give an accused person notice of its inclination […]
Mercedes was a faculty member teaching lawyers and health care professionals enrolled in the 2015 Osgoode Professional Development Mental Health Law certificate program. Mercedes presented on the topic of “The Client’s Perspective: Client-Instructed Advocacy”. […]
The Globe and Mail ran an article on Mercedes’ successful constitutional challenge to Ontario’s Mental Health Act in the case of a deaf man detained in a psychiatric facility for more than two decades. Read the full story here. […]
Mercedes was quoted in a Toronto Star article detailing a “landmark” successful Charter challenge to the Mental Health Act. Mercedes represented the appellant P.S. in the precedent setting case before the Ontario Court of Appeal of a deaf man detained for almost two decades at the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care. The Court of […]
Mercedes was successful before the Court of Appeal for Ontario in a precedent setting constitutional challenge to Ontario’s Mental Health Act. Mercedes represented a deaf man who had been detained at the maximum secure unit of the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care for almost two decades. In the case of PS, a five-judge panel […]
Mercedes Perez and lawyer Suzan Fraser represented the intervener Mental Health Legal Committee at the Supreme Court of Canada in an appeal that arose in the context of ongoing bed shortages within forensic psychiatric facilities in Ontario. The Supreme Court’s decision in R. v. Conception is available here. […]
Mercedes spoke at an event on “Mental Health in the Canadian Justice System” to commemorate International Prisoners’ Justice Day. The event was organized by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Legal Aid Ontario. The poster for the event is available here. […]