A new legislation concerning mental patients ought to have two main purposes: 1 — the protection of certain mental patients, who by their mental illness are not able to protect and promote their own interests in a proper way and 2 — the protection of the community against the behaviour of those, who by their mental illness disturb the rules of this community. The measures to be taken in order to obtain these aims have to be imposed by a specialised judge, who has time and skill to take the proper measures. In case of danger the community itself has to establish the danger; the physician only establishes the relation between the danger and the mental illness. Fundamentally speaking it is not the physician's task to protect the community against danger, but to treat the mental patient. Protection of interests and protection against danger have to be realised by a scala of different measures which offers the possibility to make the measures fit the mental patient's situation, in order to save the rights and the freedom of the patient to the highest possible extent. In this article proposals are made for a legislation which tries to reach these aims.