On Friday 26th, July, the CAT Committee closed its 80th session. During the session, the Committee held interactive dialogues with (videos available here), and recently published its recommendations to, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Republic of Korea and Türkiye. The International Disability Alliance has published its compilation of Disability Relevant Extracts out of these four new Concluding Observations, which can be found here, allowing to observe interesting elements related to persons with disabilities.
The more salient recommendations of these session were addressed to the Republic of Korea in connection with institutionalization. This might have plenty to do with the active participation of civil society organizations around this issue. Indeed, nine non-governmental organizations, including the Korean Disability Forum and Disability Rights Advocate Center, submitted a public joint written contribution focusing on institutionalization of persons with disabilities, which can be found here.
The duty to provide redress and reparations to victims of State violence and institutionalization
The CAT Committee has contributed to explicitly establishing the State duty to provide full reparation to "victims of past State violence and institutionalization". The Committee stressed the need to ensure "effective redress and reparation, including compensation, satisfaction, and rehabilitative services, without being required to file formal complaint" to victims of past "State violence and institutionalization, including those from social care institutions, orphanages and other closed-type institutions" (emphasis added).
This recommendation covers the situation of persons with disabilities, mainly but not only persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, who have been institutionalized. Institutionalization of persons with disabilities typically comes with multiple violations of rights, including exposure to ill-treatment. Moreover, States have recognized that forced institutionalization itself is a form of violence in HRC resolution 47/15).[1] With this recommendation, the CAT Committee supports human rights standards developed under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the CRPD Committee, who calls to accelerate deinstitutionalization and provide full redress and reparations to survivors of institutions.[2]
In addition, in IDA's view, the phrase "without being required to file formal complaint" should be interpreted as requiring the State to take the initiative to provide for reparations and to release individuals from demonstrating the damage caused to them by institutionalization, which is assumed as inherent to it.
IDA welcomes this recommendation and believes that the CAT Committee takes the right direction on this point, which hopefully becomes stable jurisprudence through future recommendations.
A safeguards approach that leaves the door open to involuntary hospitalization
The CAT Committee, departing from a recent positive trend calling States to "consider repealing any legislation that allows deprivation of liberty on the basis of impairment and that allows forced medical interventions on persons with disabilities,"[3] recommended the Republic of Korea to "[c]ontinue its ongoing efforts, and consider revising legislation regulating involuntary hospitalization, to ensure respect for legal safeguards to prevent torture and ill-treatment, including judicial review."
This recommendation might provide legitimacy to involuntary hospitalization, as it does not points out the direction required for the legislative review and as it advances a "safeguards approach", which does not deem the deprivation of liberty based on disability unjustified. While important, the request for an "effective, independent, confidential and accessible complaint mechanism for persons with disabilities in the psychiatric institutions" does not compensate.
Additional elements on disability rights: conditions of detention and prompt identification of asylum seekers with disabilities
For both Côte d'Ivoire and Ecuador, and under the theme "conditions of detention", the CAT Committee was explicit in requesting States Parties to address the requirements of persons with disabilities deprived of liberty, mentioning explicitly, for the case of Ecuador, the need for measures to ensure reasonable accommodation and accessibility of prisons.
When discussing "asylum and non-refoulement" in connection to Ecuador, the CAT Committee expressed its concern about "reports received pointing out deficiencies in the identification of persons with specific requirements among asylum seekers and refugees, including persons with disabilities." The Committee called the State Party to "continue its efforts to ensure that persons with specific requirements are identified in a prompt and adequate manner, to provide them access to specialized services, including medical services."
Upcoming sessions and States' reviews: For more OPDs engagement!
Nothing replaces the engagement of national organizations of persons with disabilities to raise their concerns regarding the protection against torture at the national level as a way of requesting the CAT Committee to give more explicit consideration to them.
As per usual, the International Disability Alliance invites national organizations of persons with disabilities to engage with the Committee against Torture and other UN Treaty Bodies.
Find the relevant information on future sessions at the CAT Committee's Sessions Database. Upcoming States' reviews include the following countries: Cameroon, Jordan, Kuwait, Mongolia, Namibia and Thailand at the 81st session (28 Oct 2024 - 22 Nov 2024) (deadline for reports: 28 September 2024)
See IDA guidance documents on reporting to human rights mechanisms and engage with the upcoming review of your country!
[1] See Human Rights Council, Resolution 47/15, 13 July 2021, Preamble, para. 20: “Expressing concern that forced institutionalization is a form of violence that deprives women and girls of liberty on the basis of disability and that in such situations they face an increased risk of further violations and abuses, including physical, psychological and sexual and gender-based violence”.
[2] See CRPD Committee, Guidelines on Deinstitutionalization, including in emergencies, 2022.
[3] See recent CAT Committee's Concluding Observations on New Zealand (77th session), and on Austria and Finland (79th session).
