In February, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the case of Semikhvostov v Russia, concluding that there had been a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
The case was brought to the Court by a wheelchair user who was subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment while in prison. The Court concluded that there had been a violation of Article 3 of the UNCRPD on account of the inhuman and degrading conditions of the applicant’s detention. It also ruled that there had been a violation of Article 13 of the Convention due to the absence of an effective domestic remedy with which to raise claims of inadequate conditions of detention.
The European Disability Forum and the International Disability Alliance were involved in the case, through the submission of a third party intervention to the Court in January 2013.