Rule of law - wishful thinking? Exemptions from educational requirements and the use of coercion against people with intellectual disability

Abstract

The article focuses on two conditions related to the use of coercion vis-á-vis persons with intellectual disabilities in Norway. The first condition concerns the widespread use of exemptions from legally binding educational requirements. Based on three independent sources we claim that exemptions from educational requirements were made for 80% of the individuals affected by the decisions, and in 2007 only 3% of all applications were rejected by the county governor’s office. The second condition relates to a five-fold increase in decisions regarding the use of coercion between 1999 and 2008. We have used registry data from The Norwegian Board of Health Supervision concerning notifications and decisions related to the use of force and coercion that was gathered between 1999 and 2008. Second, we carried out a pilot study in which we considered a sample of the notifications and decisions involving the use of coercion between 2007 and 2008. Third, we have carried out a telephone survey where all 19 county governors were asked questions about their routines regarding notifications to The Norwegian Board of Health Supervision in 2009. Our findings are that use of coercion and restraint, and the lack of legally binding qualifications, are closely related. Furthermore, the dominant practice of exemptions from legally binding educational requirements weakens the rule of law.

Keywords

• rule of law
• intellectual disability
• coercion
• legislation
• (exemptions from) educational requirements
• aggression
• challenging behaviour
• self-inflected injury
• prevalence
• topography