Words Mean Something

In my  role as a social worker at a medical teaching facility, in a psychiatric department, I've witnessed, written, and read a lot of petitions.  Petitions in Michigan are the initial paperwork needed to hospitalize someone involuntarily.  They're pretty serious stuff.  The petition itself, which anyone can fill out, doesn't take away a person's rights; for that,  two physicians, one of whom must be a psychiatrist, must compete a certificate saying that they agree the patient needs to be hospitalized against his will.