The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) delivered a judgment on Thursday finding a violation of the right to life in the case of a 45-year-old woman suffering from an intellectual disability who died while residing in a state-run Hungarian care home. The court cited an inadequate response to alarming conditions in its decision.

The woman, identified as Ms. TJ, was diagnosed with severe intellectual disability shortly after she was born. She was unable to communicate verbally, and was occasionally prone to aggressive behavior. She was admitted to Tophaz Social Care Institution in the town of Göd in 1983.

At the time of her stay in the institution, several injuries were recorded on Ms. TJ’s medical file, including wounds on her head and face as well as cuts on her eyelids and eyebrows, caused either by falling, being pushed, or hitting herself. When representatives from the Validity Foundation mental health advocacy group discovered TJ in the institution during a spring 2017 monitoring visit, they found her to be severely malnourished, heavily medicated and non-responsive. TJ was tied to a bed with a makeshift restraint, and her muscles showed evidence of atrophy due to a long-term lack of movement. 

The chamber judgment came following a criminal complaint lodged thereafter by Validity in 2017, anchored on the living conditions in the Tophaz Institution.

Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights mandates the protection of everyone’s right to life by the law. Article 14 establishes the freedom from discrimination on any ground. According to the court, Tophaz Institution thereby infringed these provisions.

A submission filed by the Validity Foundation to the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in April 2023 discussed Article 4 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture from a disability point of view. The organization stated that where there was a deprivation of liberty, such that people with disability cannot leave a particular place, facility, or setting of their own free will, such places should be considered places of detention.

The parties involved in the case may seek an appeal to the ECHR’s Grand Chamber.