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ABSTRACT
This article explores a paradigmatic case of legal mobilisation in the UK: successful litigation taken by RF, an anonymous claimant, against the Department of Work and Pensions’ cuts to disability mobility benefits for those facing ‘psychological distress’. While there is now a flourishing literature on the mobilisation of disability rights around the world, socio-legal scholarship has tended to overlook the mobilisation of law by those experiencing mental ill health or the potential contributions of adoption a social model of madness, mental distress and confusion. In developing a ‘thick description’ of the litigation process in the RF case, the article inductively identifies important lessons for scholars of legal consciousness and legal mobilisation. It showcases how the litigation process has both oppressive and empowering potential for those who are otherwise subject to systemic oppression by mental health and welfare benefit services. Second, it broadens the empirical literature on disability legal mobilisation which has largely overlooked the mobilisation of law by mental health service users and psychiatric survivors beyond issues related to psychiatric interventions, institutionalisation and detention.
Acknowledgment
This research would not have been possible without the generosity, expertise and insights of the research participants, particularly RF and SM. We want to thank Ryan Brun and Friederike Hartz for excellent research assistance. We are grateful to the journal’s editor and anonymous reviewers, Celeste Arrington, Jo Hickman, Sara Lomri, David Sampson and panel and audience members at the 2019 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Washington D.C. for helpful comments. We want to acknowledge funding from the Lankelly Chase Foundation and the Baring Foundation and support from Public Law Project which made this research possible. All views, errors or omissions are our own.
Disclosure statement
Some of this research was undertaken as part of an independent learning partnership with Public Law Project and Lankelly Chase.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
CASES CITED
Herczegfalvy v Austria, App. No. 10,533/83, 15 Eur. H.R. Rep. 437,1 82 (1992).
MH v. Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, UKUT 0531 (AAC) (2016).
RF v. Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Others, EWHC 3375 (Admin) (2017).
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v. LB (PIP), UKUT 530 AAC (2016).
Victor Rosario Congo v. Ecuador, Case 11.427, Inter-Am. C.H.R., Report No. 63/99, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.106, doc. 6 rev. (1999).
STATUTES CITED
The Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations (2013), Part 2 (2013).
Welfare Reform Act (2012), Part 4 UK Public General Acts, chapter 5, Part 4 (2012).
INTERVIEWS
Interview 1, 11 September 2018
Interview 2, 11 September 2018
Interview 3, 1 November 2018
Interview 4, 16 November 2018
Interview 5, 16 November 2018
Interview 6, 26 November 2018
Interview 7, 29 November 2018
Interview 8, 27 November 2018
Interview 9, 25 October 2018
Interview 10 12 November 2018
Notes
1. Another initial claimant in the case (SM) withdrew.
2. Article 14 ECHR when read in conjunction with Article 8 and / or Article 1 of the First Protocol.