Human Rights and Mental Health Law
Part of the founding philosophy of Sheehan & Partners LLP was to ensure that no person, no matter how disadvantaged, would be denied access to the Courts because of such disadvantage.
This Human-Rights centred approach has led to the practice bringing a large number of important cases before the higher Courts on behalf of prisoners and psychiatric patients, or former prisoners or patients. The firm has recovered substantial damages in many such cases. On two occasions, once for two prisoner clients, and once for a former psychiatric patient, the firm has brought cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, succeeding on each occasion, and in the latter case, forcing a major change in the law relating to compulsory psychiatric detention.