European Court of Human Rights Awards Damages to Mentally Disabled Man
March 11, 2010
MDAC welcomes last week’s judgment of the European Court ofHuman Rights which ordered the Russian government to pay 25,000 EURcompensation to a man with mental health disabilities who wasunlawfully deprived of legal capacity and arbitrarily detained in apsychiatric hospital for more than six months. This is the largestamount of compensation the Court has ever awarded in a disabilityrights case.
The Mental Disability Advocacy Center today welcomes the 4 March2010 European Court of Human Rights judgment which ordered the Russiangovernment to pay 25,000 EUR damages to MDAC’s client PavelShtukaturov. The issuedby the same court in March 2008, which found that Russia was inviolation of several provisions of the European Convention on HumanRights. The client has been represented in proceedings by MDAC’s LegalMonitor in Russia, attorney Dmitri Bartenev.
Welcoming the judgment, MDAC’s Executive Director Oliver Lewis said,
“This judgment is a milestone for globalhuman rights as 25,000 euro is the largest amount of compensation theEuropean Court of Human Rights has ever awarded to an applicant in adisability rights case. This sum reflects the gravity of human rightsviolations faced by people with disabilities the world over and theseriousness with which the mainstream human rights community now viewsthese violations. The judgment sends a clear message to governmentsthat it will be expensive if they fail to take legislative and policyaction to effectively implement international human rights law forpeople with disabilities.”
In its judgment last week the Court reiterated that the amount ofcompensation for non-pecuniary damage (meaning compensation for painand suffering) is assessed with a view to providing “reparation for theanxiety, inconvenience and uncertainty caused by the violation” andthat the respondent State is under a legal obligation to “restore asfar as possible the situation existing before the breach.”
More info from the Mental Disability Advocacy Center, http://www.mdac.info/en/node/144
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