The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has recently issued a series of judgments which reinforce the rights of people with psycho-social disabilities. On 2 October 2012, the ECtHR found in Plesó v Hungary that forced committal to a psychiatric hospital to prevent deterioration of health was not justified. Hungary was found to have violated Article 5 (1), the right to liberty, of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The Court attached significant weight to the arbitrariness of the decision to detain Mr Pleso and noted that the Hungarian authorities had not considered his non-consent, despite the fact that he had legal capacity. The Court stated “it is incumbent on the authorities to strike a fair balance between the competing interests emanating, on the one hand, from society’s responsibility to secure the best possible health care for those with diminished faculties (for example, because of lack of insight into their condition) and, on the other hand, from the individual’s inalienable right to self-determination (including the right to refusal of hospitalisation or medical treatment, that is, his or her ‘right to be ill’).”
Similarly in Kędzior v Poland, the ECtHR found a violation of Article 5 (1) of the Convention with regard to an incapacitated adult who was placed in a social care home indefinitely by his brother. A key factor in determining whether Article 5 (1) applied to the situation was whether the care home had exercised complete and effective control over the applicant’s treatment, care, residence and movement since he was admitted to the institution.
Finally, on 18 October, the Strasbourg Court handed down another positive judgment for those with psycho-social disabilities in Bureš v Czech Republic. In this case the applicant was strapped to a bed with restraining belts for at least three hours following an overdose. The Court unanimously held that both the use of restraints and the State’s failure to take measures to prevent torture and ill-treatment violated Article 3, prohibition of torture, of the ECHR. This judgment is significant in that it offers a distinction between treatment and torture with the use of restraints.