Tag: institutionalisation
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The right to be heard of a woman with disabilities is reinforced by the European Court
On 9 December 2025, the European Court of Human Rights delivered an important judgment in the case of H.H. v. Finland regarding the right to an oral hearing in legal cases challenging involuntary psychiatric commitment and treatments imposed without the person’s consent. The case involved a 52-year-old woman with psychosocial disabilities who was involuntarily placed multiple times in a psychiatric hospital in Finland. The applicant appealed each commitment decision in the…
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Securing the Right to Counsel: Overturning Guardianship Authority Restrictions
On 5 December 2025, our organisation won an important court case against the guardianship authority in Pest County, Hungary, reinforcing the right to independent oversight and effective access to justice for persons with disabilities. In its decision, the Budapest Environs Regional Court ruled that the authority acted unlawfully when it twice refused to allow our lawyers to meet with…
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A Call for Action: Maria’s Fight for Safety, Freedom, and Her Child
“Will my child live with me? Will my child and I be together? She said my name 4–5 times. God bless you for helping me.” – Maria Maria (name changed) is a young woman with an intellectual disability in Georgia, whose life has been marked by the kinds of violence no one should ever have to endure. At the age of just 14, she was forced into marriage with a man far older…
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Committee of Ministers calls on Hungary to implement Validity Foundation on behalf of T.J. v. Hungary judgment of the European Court
In October 2024, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a groundbreaking judgment against Hungary. It found that Hungary had violated the right to life of a woman with disabilities who had lived for a long term locked in the notorious Topház institution – one of many across the country where over an estimated 22,000…
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Woman with Lived Experience of Institutionalisation Wins Landmark Case Against Psychiatric Hospital in Bulgaria
On 23 April 2025, a district court in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, awarded substantial damages to Tanya Petkova, a woman with psychosocial disabilities, for repeated periods of psychiatric detention and coercive practices violating her dignity and autonomy and for the trauma inflicted upon her. The decision is a rare judicial acknowledgment of the impacts of intersecting…
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Topház: European Court of Human Rights finds Hungary failed to protect right to life of residents, must investigate links between death and disability
In a ground-breaking judgment today, the European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) condemned Hungary for failing to protect the lives of institutionalised persons with disabilities. States must effectively investigate the context and conditions in which people in institutions die, the Court also said. The judgment sends a strong message against institutionalisation and guardianship regimes…
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Topház: Az Emberi Jogok Európai Bírósága szerint Magyarország nem védte meg a lakók élethez való jogát; Magyarországnak vizsgálnia kell a fogyatékossággal élő személyek intézményi elhelyezése és ott bekövetkezett haláluk közötti összefüggéseket
Az Emberi Jogok Európai Bírósága („a Bíróság”) a mai napon közzétett úttörő ítéletében elítélte Magyarországot, amiért nem védte meg a fogyatékossággal élő, intézményben elhelyezett személyek életét. Az államoknak hatékonyan ki kell vizsgálniuk az intézményekben elhelyezett emberek halálának összefüggéseit és körülményeit – mondta ki a Bíróság. Az ítélet határozott üzenetet küld az intézményi és gondnoksági rendszerekkel…
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Marking the legacy of Gábor Gombos
UPDATE We remember Gábor Gombos, who passed away on 5 June 2022. Gábor’s work shaped the Hungarian and international disability movement, and his stories, presentations, speeches, and thoughts went to the heart of his audience. The book titled ’The World – Without Cage Beds: World-Shaping Narratives by Gábor Gombos’ can be ordered here and downloaded…
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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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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…