MDAC in South Africa
20 October 2011, Cape Town, South Africa. This week, MDAC was in Cape Town, South Africa, to participate in a congress of Pan African Network of People with Psycho-Social Disabilities. At the congress, MDAC gave a presentation on the right to vote under international law. The presentation highlighted recent developments such as the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Kiss v. Hungary, and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities concluding observations with regard to Spain. The presentation also pointed out the impact of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights case Moore v. The Gambia, in which the Commission found a violation of the right to vote guaranteed under Article 13(1) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The recent judgment of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court upholding the right to secret ballot for persons with disabilities was also discussed, as was the “save the vote” campaign which MDAC is coordinating.
The congress adopted a constitution which changes the Pan-African Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry to the Pan African Network of People with Psycho-social Disabilities, to reflect the paradigm shift that comes with the CRPD and to make sure that all persons with psychosocial disabilities are covered as persons with disabilities and not just persons that have used and survived psychiatry. The congress adopted the Cape Town Declaration which highlights the plights of persons with psycho-social disabilities and their demands. The declaration was presented to the Global Mental Health Summit on the 17 October 2011 in Cape Town which MDAC also attended. MDAC warmly congratulates the inaugural chair of the Pan-African Network, Robinah Nakanwagi Alambuya, an activist from Uganda who participated in the first “Mental Disability Law in Practice” summer school course organised by MDAC and the Central European University in July 2010.