eprintid: 10144620 rev_number: 7 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/14/46/20 datestamp: 2022-03-04 14:33:39 lastmod: 2022-03-04 14:33:39 status_changed: 2022-03-04 14:33:39 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Vanhala, L creators_name: Kinghan, J title: The ‘madness’ of accessing justice: legal mobilisation, welfare benefits and empowerment ispublished: inpress divisions: C03 divisions: F30 divisions: B03 divisions: UCL keywords: Access to justice, legal mobilisation, mental health, disability, welfare benefits note: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 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. date: 2022-01-01 date_type: published publisher: Informa UK Limited official_url: https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2022.2028407 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1942393 doi: 10.1080/09649069.2022.2028407 lyricists_name: Vanhala, Lisa lyricists_id: LVANH22 actors_name: Flynn, Bernadette actors_id: BFFLY94 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law pagerange: 1-20 citation: Vanhala, L; Kinghan, J; (2022) The ‘madness’ of accessing justice: legal mobilisation, welfare benefits and empowerment. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law pp. 1-20. 10.1080/09649069.2022.2028407 <https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2022.2028407>. (In press). Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10144620/1/The%20madness%20of%20accessing%20justice.pdf