The ‘madness’ of accessing justice: legal mobilisation, welfare benefits and empowerment

Autor: Lisa Vanhala, Jacqueline Kinghan
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. 44:22-41
ISSN: 1469-9621
0964-9069
Popis: This article explores a paradigmatic case of legal mobilisation in the UK: successful litigation taken by RF, an anonymous claimant, against the Department of Work and Pensions’ cuts to disability mobility benefits for those facing ‘psychological distress’. While there is now a flourishing literature on the mobilisation of disability rights around the world, socio-legal scholarship has tended to overlook the mobilisation of law by those experiencing mental ill health or the potential contributions of adoption a social model of madness, mental distress and confusion. In developing a ‘thick description’ of the litigation process in the RF case, the article inductively identifies important lessons for scholars of legal consciousness and legal mobilisation. It showcases how the litigation process has both oppressive and empowering potential for those who are otherwise subject to systemic oppression by mental health and welfare benefit services. Second, it broadens the empirical literature on disability legal mobilisation which has largely overlooked the mobilisation of law by mental health service users and psychiatric survivors beyond issues related to psychiatric interventions, institutionalisation and detention.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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