Psychiatric restraint cases · 2 BvR 309/15 and 2 BvR 502/16
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany · 24 July 2018
A patient confined to a closed psychiatric hospital was strapped to a bed on repeated doctors’ orders. The hospital already had legal authority to keep him on the ward. Did that authority also allow staff to immobilise his whole body for a prolonged period?
Why the hospital order was insufficient
The court treated prolonged five- or seven-point restraint as a further deprivation of liberty. A patient who can move around a locked ward loses another freedom when tied to a bed. The judges required a separate judicial decision for restraint that goes beyond a short intervention. An emergency can justify acting immediately, with judicial authorisation sought without delay when the measure continues. The judgment also called for continuous individual supervision during such restraint.
What a patient or relative can ask to see
The chronology matters. Identify when restraint started, how long it lasted, which alternatives were considered and when a judge was contacted. The court used an expected duration of roughly half an hour to explain a short intervention. That indication is not a licence to restrain someone for that long without necessity. The clinical reasons and the procedural safeguards both matter.
Read the court’s decision in English
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