Bataliny v Russia is another notable psychiatric detention case decided during the holiday period. Besides the usual litany of unlawful detention, lack of remedies and beatings, this may be the first time the court finds a violation of article 3 on account of non-consensual participation in a research programme for new antipsychotic medication.
Its interesting the Court felt it was necessary to deploy all the heavy weaponry, citing the 1947 Nuremberg Codes prohibiting human experiments, the 1964 Helsinki Declaration, the MI Principles (extensively), the Oviedo Convention (extensively) and the CRPD (discretely). The Court's task was made considerably easier by conclusive evidence acknowledging that the applicant had been unnecessarily and unlawfully detained and that he had been subjected to tests for new antipsychotic drugs.
The Court would not otherwise touch the use or abuse of antipsychotic medication in psychiatric hospitals with a bargepole, or engage in any meaningful review of medical necessity, which is why its new found zeal is this and other isolated cases is somewhat misleading.
Anyways, here you have it - Bataliny v Russia, (possibly) the first case on human scientific experimentation from the european court of human rights.
"The Court finds unacceptable, in the light of international standards, that a program of scientific research with new drugs be implemented without the consent of the subject submitted to the experimentation." (at para 90)
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