News
4 October 2012, Budapest. Last week the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities published its Concluding Observations for Hungary.
7 September 2012, Budapest – Today the Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) sent a letter to the Hungarian Minister of Human Resources about allegations of abuse and neglect in the “Ray of Hope Rehabilitation Institution”, which houses 116 people with intellectual and other disabilities in a gated facility on the outskirts of Budapest.
31 August, Budapest – Today the prestigious International Journal of Human Rights published a special edition on “Disability and Torture”, which was edited by the Mental Disability Advocacy Center. The seven papers each address aspects of how law can be used to prevent abuses against people with disabilities, especially in places of detention.
22 August 2012, Budapest and Moscow. As we announced in an information bulletin, on 27 June 2012 the Russian Constitutional Court held that the current law depriving people of legal capacity is incompatible with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution because it allows only plenary guardianship (full deprivation of legal capacity) and does not allow for a determination of the individual’s actual capacities. The law needs to be changed by the end of this year.
21 August 2012, Budapest. Today MDAC sent a letter to the Lithuanian Prime Minister asking him to uphold the rights of people with disabilities.
MDAC is looking for an undergraduate intern or a volunteer to assist with everyday administrative and operations tasks as needed in August! You will be working from Monday to Friday from 10.00 to 17.00, with a possibility for an extension from September.
13 August 2012, Budapest (Hungary). Today the Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) sent a report to Europe’s top social rights body, encouraging it to find Hungary in breach of its obligations under the European Social Charter.
St. Petersburg (Russia) and Budapest (Hungary), 28 June 2012. In a case initiated by MDAC, the Russian Constitutional Court yesterday quashed as unconstitutional the lack of alternatives to plenary guardianship. An estimated 300,000 people are currently under guardianship, all stripped of their personhood and of their legal rights. The Court ordered the parliament to enact a new law which better respects people’s decision-making capacity.
7 June 2012, Budapest and Copenhagen. Today the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) launched a report on “Choice and control: the right to independent living”. The report is the first to present a European level evidence-base about how people with disabilities are often excluded from society, and what needs to be done to reverse this situation.
7 June 2012, Prague and Budapest. The UN Committee against Torture has told the Czech Republic to stop caging people in psychiatry and social care. It condemned the use of institutionalisation, and criticised the use of physical restraints and solitary confinement in psychiatric facilities.