Helder wants to make sharp choices for less complex coercive laws

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Minister Conny Helder (Long-term Care) wants to work ‘with urgency’ on improving the two compulsory laws Wvggz and Wzd. More than three years after the coercive laws came into force, it is clear that the intended legal protection is sometimes not feasible in practice, she acknowledges.

These are the Care and Coercion Act (Wzd) and the Compulsory Mental Health Care Act (Wvggz), which were introduced on 1 January 2020 as a replacement for the former Special Admissions in Psychiatric Hospitals Act (Bopz). The aim was to offer people who are involved in forced care good legal protection. The laws set conditions for compulsory care, for example about who draws up a plan and decides on it and about the participation and information of clients or patients.

Institutions, care providers, municipalities and judges have been able to gain more than three years of experience, but the laws appear to be very complicated. Too complicated. One of the reasons for this is that, during the long process, the legislation was continually adapted and supplemented – by both parliament and ‘the field’. In fact, hardly anyone can handle it, according to an evaluation by ZonMw last year.

Sharper choices

In her answers to questions from the Senate (GroenLinks, D66 and 50PLUS), Minister Helder looks back on the legislative process and draws four lessons from it. First of all, she wants the primary goal – legal protection – to come first. This means that ‘tighter choices’ will be made in the improvement process. The minister sees ‘room to make less detailed rules’. Important in this respect is a ‘clear and coherent legal process’. In short, interim changes must be logical and feasible.

Finally, Helder points to the importance of the authorities and parties involved working together to arrive at a ‘supported proposal’. If that does not work, the minister will come up with a bill himself. ‘That means’, she warns, ‘that not all input from all parties can be honored on all points’. Anything to reduce complexity.

No merge

Helder wants to change the two laws simultaneously. At an earlier stage, doctors’ organizations Verenso and NVAVG had suggested merging the laws again. But the minister does not like that. Most of the parties in the field want the focus to be on improving both laws, she writes, instead of merging them. Moreover, she adds, both laws target their own specific target group, with their own system of legal protection. She does want to improve the transition between the two laws.

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