4(C)(iii). Charles lives in an institution with appalling conditions

Facts

Charles was placed in a social care home at the age of three and remained in the institution throughout his childhood. When he turned 18 he was placed under guardianship and transferred to an adult institution where the director became his guardian. The institution is located in an isolated part of the country and with extremely limited accessibility from the outside. The living conditions in the institution are horrific: there is no proper heating during the winter, residents have to sleep on bare bedframes, they do not have their own individual clothes and the stinking toilets do not give any privacy. Charles has tried to escape several times but each time the police brought him back to the institution.

Discussion

1. Community supports: Charles is denied his right to live in the community, so lawyers should argue this point to get him services in the community.
    
2. Liberty: Charles is detained with no opportunity to leave, and has been brought back when he escaped. He has no legal avenues to challenge his detention in the institution, nor to seek compensation for violation of his rights. Lawyers should argue Articles 5(4) and 5(5) of the ECHR.
    
3. Privacy, family and home: Article 8 of the ECHR could be engaged because of the restrictions on Charles’s life in the institution.
    
4. Non-discrimination: Like the previous two examples, Charles seems to have been placed in the institution because of a label of mental disability, so lawyers should look into arguing a discrimination point.
    
5. Access to justice: Lawyers may raise this if they have difficulties in bringing an action to court.  Charles only accessed a lawyer when an NGO visited the institution and spoke to him because he couldn’t reach one otherwise.
    
6. Fair trial: Charles’s placement under guardianship when he reached eighteen may raise a fair trial issue which the lawyer could raise.
    
7. Conditions: This is clearly an issue. It is vital that the remedies attached to these arguments make it clear that renovating the institution is insufficient because the main problem is Charles’s institutionalisation. The remedy to that abuse is evacuation and supports to enable Charles to live in the community.