The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the human rights of persons with mental and cognitive impairments subject to coercive powers in Australia. It sets out the relevant human rights in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which have been engaged by the COVID-19 pandemic and the government's response to it. It examines the effect of emergency legislation on the relaxation of human rights safeguards in mental health laws, with a focus on mental health tribunals (although it is limited by a lack of published decisions and gaps in publicly available information). However, some of the issues created for persons with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic are evident in some decisions published by the New South Wales Guardianship Tribunal. The paper critically analyses two guardianship decisions UZX [2020] NSWCATGD 3 (3 April, 2020) and GZK [2020] NSWCATGD 5 (23 April, 2020) and some emergency South Australian legislation COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, 2020 (SA) Schedule 1 to demonstrate the ways in which the human rights of persons with mental and cognitive impairments can be more at risk than those of the general population, even when the general population is itself in “lockdown.”

本文的目的是探讨 COVID-19 大流行对澳大利亚受强制权力影响的精神和认知障碍人士的人权的影响。它阐述了《残疾人权利公约》中因COVID-19大流行而涉及的相关人权以及政府的应对措施。它研究了紧急立法对放松精神卫生法中人权保障的影响，重点是精神卫生法庭（尽管由于缺乏公开的决定和公开信息的空白而受到限制）。然而，新南威尔士州监护法庭公布的一些裁决中明显体现了新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 大流行期间为残疾人带来的一些问题。本文批判性地分析了两项监护权决定 UZX [2020] NSWCATGD 3（2020 年 4 月 3 日）和 GZK [2020] NSWCATGD 5（2020 年 4 月 23 日）以及南澳大利亚州的一些紧急立法《2020 年新冠肺炎紧急响应法案》（ SA）时间表1 展示精神和认知障碍人士的人权在哪些方面可能比普通民众面临更大的风险，即使普通民众本身处于“封锁”状态。