Category: Countries
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The European Committee of Social Rights publishes a new decision against Czechia concerning the use of cage beds
The European Committee of Social Rights, in a decision of 14 February 2024, has delivered a verdict addressing severe human rights violations in Czechia. This decision follows a meticulous examination prompted by a complaint filed in 2019 by the Validity Foundation in partnership with the Forum for Human Rights, highlighting the egregious use of cage…
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The European Committee of Social Rights requests that Council of Europe Member States introduce proper inclusive education and deinstitutionalisation processes.
At the end of March 2024, the European Committee of Social Rights published its Conclusions 2023 and Findings 2023 and called on Council of Europe Member States to introduce proper inclusive education and deinstitutionalisation processes. The European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) published its 2023 Conclusions in respect of the articles of the European Social…
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Zambia: Zambian authorities must implement the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ recommendations
A range of Zambian organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) and other civil society organizations (CSOs) – who early in March this year made submissions to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the Committee) ahead of its examination of Zambia’s compliance with and implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights…
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Breaking Barriers: European Court Judgment Exposes Discrimination and Abuse of Children with Disabilities in Moldova
Today, the European Court of Human Rights issued a ground-breaking judgment in the case of V.I. v Moldova, highlighting critical issues of discrimination on the basis of disability and age which resulted in ill-treatment against a child with an intellectual disability. The Court found the problems to be systemic, requiring the government to take legal…
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Topház: Court rules Hungarian state authorities responsible for grave disability rights violations
The Budapest Capital Court today issued a judgment finding three state authorities responsible for multiple, grave violations of the rights of 220 adults and children with disabilities detained in the notorious Topház Social Care Home. Validity first exposed the shocking abuses in 2017, reporting on filthy living conditions, violence, torture and ill-treatment, malnutrition and the…
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Ukraine Recovery: Statement by the Global Coalition on Deinstitutionalization and Ukrainian Disability Rights Organisations
The signatories to this letter are the Global Coalition on Deinstitutionalization and Ukrainian organizations of persons with disabilities dedicated to the protection of rights and full community inclusion of children and adults with disabilities. The Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on establishing the Ukraine Facility is a step…
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Czechia: European Court of Human Rights Finds Violation of Right to Life of Young Man Tasered in Psychiatric Hospital
For the first time, the European Court of Human Rights has found that the Czech Republic violated a young man’s right to life due to wrong and violent interventions by the staff of a locked psychiatric hospital and police, tragically resulting in his death. The judgment sets an important precedent, challenging the common restraint practices…
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Czech Constitutional Court Rules in Landmark Decision on Inclusive Education and Access to Justice
On 4 December 2023, in a seminal ruling, the Constitutional Court of Czechia found that a child with disabilities had been unconstitutionally denied access to education and a fair trial due to the failure of the lower courts to adequately address the discrimination claims of a child with autism. The case started in 2015, and…
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Mexico: Validity intervenes before the National Supreme Court of Justice to argue coercive psychiatric treatment violates CRPD
In November 2023, Validity submitted an Amicus Curiae in a trial initiated by Documenta which concerns the involuntary hospitalization and treatment of 90 women with disabilities in a psychiatric hospital in Mexico. The unlawful treatment and detention of these women clearly raised issues of a general nature regarding the impact on the enjoyment of human…
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Cage Beds, Human Rights, Dignity: Commemorating the Life and Works of Gábor Gombos
In November 2023, Validity and our partners at the Bárczi Gusztáv Faculty of Special Needs Education at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) published a unique collection of materials commemorating the life, work and thought of Gábor Gombos, a leading figure in the Hungarian and global disability rights movements and survivor of psychiatry. Gombos, who passed…