On 18-10-2022 an article was published in thepressproject.gr describing an incident of excessive police violence against a citizen who, on 16-10-2022, was involuntarily transferred to a psychiatric hospital for assessment. On 4-11-2022, the Federation of Hospital Doctors’ Associations of Greece also submitted a complaint about the incident. The complaint describes that during the patient’s wait for his assessment, witnesses saw two policemen “literally beating up a patient.” According to the witnesses, police officers had “thrown him on the floor, kicked him and cursed him vulgarly”. Mental health advocates (1, 2, 3) condemned both the specific incident and the use of violence against the mentally ill in general, referring to the need to educate/train police officers on issues related to mental illness.
In a state governed by the rule of law, the police authorities must be governed by certain principles, including the principle of legality, the principle of proportionality, the prohibition of the abuse of police power, and respect for and protection of human rights.
Although the police may use force to enforce the law, this does not mean that all use of preventive or repressive force by the police is lawful. On the contrary, the arbitrary use of the power to use force and police action in excess of legal limits is a dangerous phenomenon for a democracy.
The powers of the police authorities and the conduct they must demonstrate in the performance of their duties are regulated, inter alia, by Decree 141/1991 and Decree 254/2004. In addition, according to Article 96 par. 5 of Law no. 2071/1992, the transfer of a patient to a public psychiatric hospital for examination must be carried out under conditions that ensure respect for the patient’s personality and dignity, in accordance with the provisions of Article 96A of the aforementioned Act.
In the present case, the alleged conduct of police officers against a patient whom they were escorting for a psychiatric examination and, in particular, the verbal and physical violence which appears to have been used against him (even if the latter was in a state of agitation), constitute phenomena which are absolutely reprehensible in a state governed by the rule of law.
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