Professor Amita Dhanda is a leading legal scholar inthe field of mental health and law, disability rights in India and internationally. Her pioneering book "Legal Order and Mental Disorder" (Sage Publications, 2000) http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdDesc.nav?contribId=522160&prodId=Book220396 explores critically the legal situation of people living with mental illness. More importantly, she concludes that meaningfulchanges may happen in the field only if users, former users and survivors of psychiatry are given due recognition as lead persons in societal discourses and in challenging the way law handles the human rights of people with mental health problems. Prof. Dhanda is at NALSAR University of Law. During her sabbathical she spent one week in Budapest, where she was lecturing at the Budapest University College of Special Education on legal capacity ad supported decision making, at Central European Universtity on how CRPD treats women with disabilities and had a number of meetings with key actors in the field ofdisability rights.
I had the privilege to meet her at the UN while CRPD was negotiated. We both were delegates of civil society and the discussions and joint thinking in the UN Ad Hoc Committee contributed to a large extent to mycurrent project in India.
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