§ Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Health the names of the principal mental hospitals in which there are detained those who were shown to have been wrongfully certified by the High Court decision in the Kathleen Rutty case, but cannot be released because they are unfit for discharge or have nowhere suitable to go; and if he will give the number detained in each.
§ Mr. Walker-SmithThe judicial orders on which the patients referred to are detained are valid until overruled by a court of law, and although there is some similarity between the circumstances in which these mentally defective persons were dealt with under the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, and those in the Rutty case, it cannot be assumed that a court would find the order invalid in any particular case. The details of distribution asked for could not be given without a disproportionate expenditure of time and labour.