MENTAL DEFECTIVES.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19376, 31 July 1928, Page 8

MENTAL DEFECTIVES.

MODIFICATION OF BILL URGED. (PBESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON, July 30. To-night the executive of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Howard League for Penal Reform expressed the opinion that certain provisions contained 'in the Mental Defectivesl Amendment Bill called for revision and considerable modification. This was particularly the ease in respect to: (a) The extension of the definition of a mentally defective person; (b) the constitution and functions of the" Board; (c) the compilation of the register. The executive submits that the definition of persons socially defective in Clause 7 is ambiguous and liable to serious misconstruction and should be amended in terms of the British Amendment Act of 2927. The constitution of the Board to include four Departmental heads is objected to, it being considered that departmental officials, however efficient, should not be required to Undertake the onerous and Exacting duties that confront the Board in the compilation of the register and the administration of the Act. Decisions on such important matters as registration should, it was held, be determined by a unanimous vote and the Board should, as far as possible, consist of independent experts. The Bill did not make it clenr whether the Board .was actually an examining body or whether its functions wero purely administrative. In the latter caße no assurance was to be gained from the Bill that any adequate examining Board, such as a travelling clinic as advocated by Dr. Gray in his recent report, would be set up. It was most strongly urged that all reference to retardation be eliminated from the Bill. In respect to sterilisation it could not be too strongly emphasised that 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.