News

21 February 2012, Budapest and Prague. Yesterday the Czech President signed a new Civil Code into law. The new law follows a 7 year campaign by civil society organisations, advocating for changes to the guardianship law. The new law comes into force in January 2014, allowing significant time for judicial, administrative and societal awareness-raising to take place.
The previous law allowed...
20 February 2012, Budapest. Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, has today issued a comment and an issue paper on the right to legal capacity. Hammarberg calls for reform of guardianship systems which he says are “out-dated and in urgent need of reform” in the “bulk” of European countries. MDAC and other non-governmental...

MDAC held a three-day workshop on litigating the rights of persons with psycho-social and intellectual disabilities in Kampala, Uganda from 2-4 February.  The need to build capacity of lawyers on the rights of people with psycho-social disabilities and people with intellectual disabilities has always been highlighted in MDAC’s discussions with organisations of persons with...

27 January 2012, Budapest. MDAC welcomes the election of Nils Muižnieks as the third Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. At their plenary session in Strasbourg on Tuesday, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe elected Mr Muižnieks for a non-renewable term of six years starting on 1 April 2012. Mr Muižnieks is a member of the European Commission against Racism and...

 
MDAC seeks qualified applicants for a short-term researcher contract in Kenya and Zambia. For more information please click here.
17 January 2012, Budapest and Sofia. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) today delivered a landmark victory for the rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities and intellectual disabilities in the case of Stanev v. Bulgaria. The Mental Disability Advocacy Center and the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee represented Mr. Stanev in his attempts to bring domestic...
In a victory for the rights of persons deprived of legal capacity and placed in institutions by their guardians, the Czech Ombudsman issued an opinion in a case brought by MDAC and its partner organisation in the Czech Republic stating that this practice violates human rights. 
Thirty-five thousand people in the Czech Republic are deprived of their legal capacity and denied the right to...
On 19 December 2011 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a new Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). This will enable children to make a legal complaint to the UN if their CRC rights have been violated and if they have taken their complaint through domestic legal procedures. 
This is an historic step in facilitating access to justice for...
On 16 - 17 December 2011, MDAC participated at the “Regional Consultation for Europe on Prevention of Torture and Protection of Victims of Torture – Especially Persons Deprived of their Liberty” held at the UN in Geneva. The consultation aimed to identify concrete steps and forms of cooperation between international, regional, and national actors in the field.
Participants agreed that as more...
19 December 2011. On Saturday the Venice Commission (an influential group of constitutional law experts) amended one of its key documents. In doing so it reversed an anomaly which allowed countries to exclude people with “genuine mental disabilities” from the ballot box.
Through the Save the Vote campaign, you may well have sent an email to the Venice Commission, signed the e-petition, or...

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