MDAC hails compensation "milestone for global human rights" [1]

11 March 2010, Budapest (Hungary), St. Petersburg (Russia) and Strasbourg (France). MDAC welcomes last week’s judgment of the European Court of Human Rights which ordered the Russian government to pay 25,000 EUR compensation to a man with mental health disabilities who was unlawfully deprived of legal capacity and arbitrarily detained in a psychiatric hospital for more than six months. This is the largest amount of compensation the Court has ever awarded in a disability rights case.

The Mental Disability Advocacy Center today welcomes the 4 March 2010 European Court of Human Rights judgment which ordered the Russian government to pay 25,000 EUR damages to MDAC’s client Pavel Shtukaturov. The judgment follows a judgment on the merits [2] issued by the same court in March 2008, which found that Russia was in violation of several provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. The client has been represented in proceedings by MDAC’s Legal Monitor in Russia, attorney Dmitri Bartenev.

Russia: NGOs strategize on legal capacity law reform [3]

5 March 2010 Moscow (Russia) and Budapest (Hungary). Yesterday the Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) and the NGO "Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia" hosted a round table event in Moscow, Russia. The purpose was to strengthen civil society's understanding of the right to legal capacity, and to strategize on how to engage the authorities in law reform.

Coalition urges Czech court to strike down discriminatory voting laws [4]

24 February 2010. Budapest (Hungary) and Prague (Czech Republic). A coalition of international civil society organisations urges the Czech Constitutional Court to strike down laws which deny more than 25,000 adults with disabilities their right to vote.

Today, an international coalition of twenty-five civil society organizations including the Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) intervened in two cases before the Czech Constitutional Court by submitting an amicus curiae brief [5] – or third party intervention – encouraging the Court to strike down laws which prohibit people deprived of legal capacity from voting. According to the Czech Ministry of the Interior, there are 25,386 adults with disabilities in the Czech Republic deprived of their legal capacity and placed under guardianship. As a result, they are prohibited from voting in local, national and European elections.

The latest on MDAC's newsletter and website [6]

11 February 2010, Budapest: The second edition of MDAC's newsletter is now available, read it here [7]!

Our newsletters aim to keep you informed of our activities, advances, and the challenges faced in advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities in our countries and internationally. In an effort to improve and update our website, we would like to alert you to several new features. We have added accessibility options to the website to enable our readers to better access our pages or to listen to spoken version of news and stories. Just click on the MDAC podcasts [8]box on the right side under the menu. Visitors may also give direct feedback and write a comment under each news posts. The new Archives button [9] stocks past editions of MDAC's Newsletter as well as previously issued MDAC Information Bulletins. And check out our Executive Director's Blog [10]!