Psychiatric admission is generally voluntary; involuntary admission requires specified legal conditions
In China, a family's or employer's request alone does not establish grounds to keep someone in a psychiatric hospital. The cited law requires a diagnosis and assessment of severe mental disorder together with self-harm risk or danger to others. The self-harm route additionally requires guardian consent. For the danger-to-others route, a disputed diagnosis has a specific three-day re-diagnosis request procedure and a further assessment route.
What it takes
No charge to know and invoke the rules.
What you may gain
Mental Health Law Article 30 establishes voluntary psychiatric hospitalization. Admission under its exceptions requires a diagnosis and assessment showing severe mental disorder and either actual self-harm or risk of it, or actual danger to others' safety or risk of it. Article 31 requires guardian consent for the self-harm category; without it, that admission cannot proceed under the provision. Under Article 32, a patient or guardian disputing admission in the danger-to-others category may request re-diagnosis within three days of receiving the diagnosis, by two psychiatrists other than the original diagnostician. If still disputed, they may independently commission a medical assessment from a legally qualified assessment body. Article 35 prohibits hospitalization under this route where re-diagnosis or assessment cannot establish severe mental disorder or finds admission unnecessary. Article 78 imposes compensation liability on people who deliberately send someone without a mental disorder for treatment as though they had one. The law took effect May 1, 2013, and was amended in 2018.
Context & considerations
This does not prevent necessary emergency assessment. Article 28 requires close relatives, employers, or local police to act promptly to stop actual or threatened self-harm or danger to others in a person suspected of mental disorder and arrange a diagnostic assessment; the institution must not refuse to assess. Being brought for assessment and being kept in hospital are separate legal stages. Article 75 addresses institutional violations, including unlawful restraint or isolation and diagnosing a person without mental disorder as having one, with disciplinary measures up to license revocation. For responding to threatened violence, see chapter 8.
Research & references
Mental Health Law of the People's Republic of China, amended 2018, Articles 30, 31, 32, 35, and 78. https://flk.npc.gov.cn/detail?id=2c909fdd678bf17901678bf7448a066d