24/05/2024 Standing Committee | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s Standing Committee has urged a move away from a “discriminatory and stigmatising” legal approach which allows the involuntary detention of persons belonging to certain categories, such as those with psychiatric disorders.
“These persons have been referred to as ‘socially maladjusted’ individuals, including in the past by the European Court of Human Rights, an approach that is considered discriminatory and stigmatising in the human rights community,” the committee said in a recommendation, based on a report by Stefan Schennach (Austria, SOC).
The committee said that in the last 70 years there had been a “worldwide paradigm shift” to a human-rights based approach to disability and addiction, as exemplified by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which does not allow for the deprivation of liberty based on actual or perceived disability.
“The idea of social control – whether of persons with psychosocial disabilities, of persons who use drugs or alcohol, or of persons without a fixed abode – is not compatible with our 21st century understanding of human rights,” the parliamentarians pointed out. “The time has come to move away from the discriminatory concept of excluding certain groups from human rights protection.”
The committee recommended a series of measures to avoid the detention or institutionalisation of persons facing mental health or substance abuse challenges, and encourage best practice in line with the UN convention.
The Standing Committee acts in the name of the full Assembly between plenary sessions.