Friday 24 October 2014

European Court request to place man under guardianship and interim measures request

This is a brief post about a case pending before the European Court of Human Rights of a man diagnosed with schizophrenia, and who has been held for fourteen years in psychiatric hospitals apparently without a valid justification. Before I got involved in the case as the applicant's representative, the Court instructed the Romanian Government to place the applicant under guardianship as a measure aimed at ensuring the smooth running of proceedings
in the case before it. Except the problem in Romania is that guardianship completely deprives the person in question of their legal capacity amounting to "civil death", not restricted solely to litigation capacity. The Government complied and started guardianship proceedings. I recently filed an interim measures request trying to stop these proceedings, which however the Court summarily rejected as exceeding the scope of Rule 39. No judges have even seen my request. I find it particularly worrying that the Court is endorsing an institution (unreformed guardianship) that is de plano in breach of the CRPD. I will write more about this case and others, but for the time being I am publishing here my request for interim measures which has just been rejected. It is available HERE. For a word copy of the document please write to me directly: constantincojocariu@yahoo.com

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