While the call by psychiatrist Professor Wendel Abel for the creation of a dedicated court for people with mental health issues who are in conflict with the law is not new, the fact that we are still at the point of its proposal is evidence of its necessity.

Professor Abel made the call in an interview with this newspaper last week in response to our report that Supreme Court judge Justice Leighton Pusey was forced to turn down an application by the Legal Aid Council for the release of six mentally disordered prisoners held for years at the governor general’s pleasure because no institution or family members would take them.

Justice Pusey, in handing down the judgment, indicated that the inmates had not been sentenced for the offences to which they were found unfit to plead, as no trial regarding their guilt had taken place.

He also lamented that “after almost two years of adjournments to allow the Legal Aid Council to seek appropriate accommodations for the applicants”, the court had no other recourse, even as it considers the correctional facilities to be a “less bad” solution than releasing them without supervision and resources.

As Professor Abel pointed out, the country has been struggling with this gut-wrenching issue for the past few decades.

We recall very well that after the painful story of 81-year-old Mr Noel Chambers, who spent 40 years in prison without trial and died inside, a committee was established in 2020 to probe the reasons for the failures leading to hundreds of mentally ill people in conflict with the law being detained in prisons for years, some as much as five decades, with half listed as awaiting trial.0

The committee, commissioned by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, recommended that a mental health court be established to facilitate interaction between individuals in the justice system with interest in inmates with mental problems.

It also recommended that the proposed court be well-resourced and training provided at all levels. Additionally, judges presiding in that court should be given authority to place mentally challenged individuals coming before them in a court-diversion programme to shift those with mental troubles out of the normal adversarial trial process.

The recommendations, as we recall, received broad welcome. But obviously they have remained just that — recommendations.

The committee, as far as we are concerned, met its mandate. However, the individuals and entities that have a duty to implement the recommendations have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Again, we highlight the prime minister’s comments in 2020 after the embarrassing episode involving the late Mr Chambers.

A comprehensive audit into the circumstances leading up to Mr Chambers’ passing had been commissioned, he said, and a key outcome “will be a detailed multi-agency examination of the loopholes that may exist across the system in order to ensure that we remedy any likelihood of this situation repeating itself”.

He also said that the “unfortunate situation must result in a complete and comprehensive overview and overhaul of the system to deal with custodies in general and those with underlying mental and physiological conditions…”

Yet still, we wait. And the yawning chasm between our words and our deeds remains to remind us of our shame.