The Mental Disability Advocacy Center asks
Why must people with disabilities turn to the European Court of Human Rights for protection?
23 August 2007, Budapest (Hungary) and Strasbourg (France): This week alone the Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) has filed three applications at the European Court of Human Rights. The reason is simple. Abuse of people with disabilities remains pervasive. Many States simply sit back and watch.
The abuse, physical and mental, of adults with actual or perceived intellectual or psycho-social (mental health) disabilities varies in its intensity, form and the country in which it takes place. Common to each of the three cases launched by MDAC at the European Court this week however, is a single feature: State apathy. As a result of such apathy human rights abuses can, and do, occur with impunity.
‘The only way to shake these States out of their apathy and obtain some justice for those who have been abused, is to take cases to the European Court of Human Rights,’ says Barbora Bukovská, Legal Director of MDAC. ‘Far too many people with disabilities have suffered horrendous abuse whilst States have done little more than sit back and watch.’
The three cases involve Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Estonia. In Bulgaria a disabled elderly woman died having been placed in a social care institution. Whilst in the institution she suffered broken bones, extensive severe bruising and her head and eyebrows were shaved. The circumstances of her death and injuries were at no time clarified. Further, although administrative enquiries into her treatment at the institution uncovered serious violations, law enforcement authorities failed to carry out adequate and/or effective investigations, no-one was held accountable and no redress available.
In the Czech Republic the applicant was forcibly detained for six weeks in a psychiatric hospital on the insistence of a relative. The relative’s assertion that the applicant was dangerous and therefore in need of detention, was at no time corroborated by psychiatric evidence based upon an actual examination of the applicant: the psychiatric evidence that was given three days later at a review of the detention was based on medical records alone. The applicant was unable to challenge the psychiatrist and her ‘representative’, a judicial clerk, chose not to do so. Nor indeed did the representative take any active part in the proceedings. It was only six weeks later, upon the private appointment of adequate legal representation, that the applicant was released. No-one has been held accountable for the detention and no effective legal safeguards have since been implemented to ensure such arbitrary detention cannot occur again.
Meanwhile in Estonia, the applicant was placed under ‘guardianship’ following unfair proceedings and in the absence of a medical assessment. His legal representation was wholly inadequate and he was denied a fair trial. As a direct consequence the applicant’s legal capacity was withdrawn and he was immediately and arbitrarily denied his human right to make decisions concerning his personal life. Legislation permitting such treatment remains in place.
‘These varied and frequent abuses must end,’ says Ms. Bukovská. ‘MDAC therefore calls on all States to engage promptly and fully with substantive human rights reforms. Unless they do so, they will continue to fail in their obligations towards some of their most vulnerable citizens, obligations voluntarily undertaken upon ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights.’
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(notes for editors)
For those of us who have not experienced guardianship, it is possibly difficult to fully understand the way it can strip a person of all human rights, and expose them to direct and indirect abuse. Guardianship is often viewed as a necessary legal mechanism introduced to ‘protect’ people considered not capable of making the ‘right’ decision in their daily lives. Unfortunately in many countries in Europe and central Asia this view is misleading. Guardianship is instead a legal mechanism that serves to perpetuate and hide abuse against many thousands of adults, and to defy accountability for those perpetrators. See MDAC’s website www.mdac.info for more information on guardianship.
The Mental Disability Advocacy Center advances the human rights of children and adults with actual or perceived intellectual or psycho-social disabilities. Focusing on Europe and Central Asia, we use a combination of law and advocacy to promote equality and social integration. MDAC has participatory status with the Council of Europe and is a cooperating organisation of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. MDAC’s vision is for a world that values emotional, mental and learning differences, and where people respect each other’s autonomy and dignity.
Mental Disability Advocacy Center
Rákóczi út 27/B, 1088 Budapest, Hungary
Tel: + 36 1 413 27 30, fax: +36 1 4 13 27 39
Email: mdac@mdac.info, web: www.mdac.info
For further information on this release contact:
Barbora Bukovská, MDAC Legal Director, mdac@mdac.info or + 36 1 413 2730.
Funding for MDAC’s work on these cases came from the Open Society Institute – Budapest, and Doughty Street Chambers.
(ends)
