Parliament Thursday passed Bill Number 17 of 2025: Mental Health.
The bill, if assented to by the President, will repeal and replace the Mental Treatment Act, which was enacted in 1948, in order to effect a change from the medical-based approach to treatment of persons with a mental health condition to a human rights-based approach to management, treatment and rehabilitation of persons with a mental health condition.
The bill intends to make provisions for the promotion and protection of human rights and freedoms of persons with a mental health condition.
Health Minister Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda said the bill establishes a Mental Health Board as the body responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights and freedoms of persons with a mental health condition, among other things.
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The board will be regulating management, treatment and rehabilitation of persons with a mental health condition.
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Kandodo Chiponda further said the bill prescribes rights of persons with a mental health condition premised on their entitlement to enjoy human rights on an equal basis with other persons in all aspects of life, in accordance with Part IV of the Constitution, and amplifies rights that are crucial for persons with a mental health condition.
The rights, according to Kandodo Chiponda, include the right to recognition before the law; the right to employment and fair and humane treatment at a workplace; the right to the highest attainable standard of mental health care; and prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment.
“The bill provides for the power and procedure for taking a person with a mental health condition into custody where the person is harming, or is likely to harm, himself or herself or any other person; causing, or is likely to cause, serious damage to, or loss of, property; acting, or likely to act, in a manner which is offensive to public decency; not under proper care and control;
“Being cruelly treated or neglected by any other person having charge of the person with a mental health condition; or actively suicidal,” Kandodo Chiponda said.
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DPP spokesperson on the bill Matthews Ngwale and UDF spokesperson on the bill Ned Poya all spoke in favour of the legislation.
The House has also passed Private Members’ Bill number 1 of 2025, Forestry (Amendment).
The bill seeks to amend the Forestry Act (Cap 63:01) in order to iron out operational challenges that are being met in the implementation of the Act.
According to the mover of the bill, Chitipa South lawmaker Werani Chilenga, the challenges include lack of appropriate regulation on the use of firearms by forestry officers, inadequate enforcement of key provisions of the Act by the Department of Forestry due to inadequate personnel and omission of specific offences and penalties under the current Act, among other things.
“The bill, therefore, designates officers from other government agencies and departments as enforcement officers and empowers these officers to do specific acts such as inspection, search and seizure of forest produce.
“The bill also provides for additional offences and penalties under sections 64, 82 and 83 of the Act,” Chilenga said.
