Liberty Denied: Human Rights Violations in Criminal Psychiatric Detention
Reviews in Hungary
Budapest, 11 March 2004. Today, at a press conference at the Central
European University in Budapest, the Mental Disability Advocacy Center
(MDAC) launched its latest report and called on the Hungarian government to
better respect fair trial rights of people with mental disabilities who have
been sentenced to psychiatric detention by a criminal court.
MDAC's 52-page report, "Liberty Denied: Human Rights Violations in Criminal
Psychiatric Detention Reviews in Hungary", reveals systemic problems in
legal procedures. Over the last two years, MDAC has conducted 60 court
observations as well as numerous interviews with attorneys, prosecutors,
judges and psychiatrists who participate in the court review of criminal
psychiatric detention. The research reveals multiple violations of human
rights guaranteed by Hungarian and international law.
People who have committed a serious crime in Hungary may be diverted from
prison if they had a mental disability at the time of the crime. Instead
they are detained in a high security psychiatric hospital in Budapest
(called "IMEI") and receive psychiatric "treatment" in the form of high
doses of medication. A court reviews these patients' detention annually;
they are entitled to release when the court deems the treatment no longer
necessary. Sole evidence about the patients is presented through reports of
the treating psychiatrist and an "independent" court-appointed psychiatrist.
However, MDAC concludes that these court reviews are a sham. Court-appointed
attorneys fail to protect their clients and do not adequately probe the
evidence. The decision to continue detention in fact rests with a faceless
psychiatrist whose findings are not subject to review or challenge.
In violation of Hungarian law and the European Convention on Human Rights,
court-appointed attorneys systematically fail to advocate on behalf of their
clients. They rarely meet their clients before the court reviews, and rarely
explain the contents of the psychiatric reports to their clients. In no
cases observed by MDAC did the attorney challenge the psychiatric reports.
In some cases observed by MDAC, court-appointed attorneys recommended to the
court that their client should be further detained, contrary to the client's
clearly stated wishes.
The overall responsibility for ensuring human rights protection in the
courtroom rests with judges, but according to MDAC's research, judges fail
to protect the rights of psychiatric patients. The average time it took for
a court to review a person's detention was less than eight minutes; in every
case observed, the judge simply followed the recommendations of the
psychiatric reports. Thus, the court review was a meaningless exercise: in
fact, it is the patient's treating psychiatrist who decides whether a
patient remains detained.
Even though the court relies exclusively on psychiatric evidence, the
psychiatrists are never present at court hearings, preventing any inquiry
into their findings. Patients and their attorneys rarely see psychiatric
reports in advance of court reviews, making it impossible for the patient to
prepare counter arguments or to challenge the evidence presented in the
psychiatric reports.
Today MDAC calls on the Hungarian government to end the human rights
violations revealed in "Liberty Denied". MDAC recommends that the Criminal
Code be amended to include a substantive standard against which judges
should decide these cases. In order that these court reviews are more than a
mere formality, the attendance at court of the psychiatric experts must be
made mandatory, and specialist training on mental disability law should be
implemented for judges and court-appointed attorneys.
Speakers at today's event, held in the Central European University in
Budapest, were Oliver Lewis (MDAC legal director and report author),
Professor Károly Bárd (head of the Legal Studies Department, Central
European University), Dr Júlia Szilágyi (advisor, Hungarian Parliamentary
Commissioner for Human Rights) and Dr Levente Baltay (lawyer, Hungarian
Civil Liberties Union).
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