Derecho a la vida

On 17th July, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held the Romanian government accountable for violating the human rights of Valentin Câmpeanu, a youth with severe mental disabilities and HIV positive, who died in 2004. Abandoned at birth, he lived in public institutions all his life. When he turned eighteen, he was shifted to a social care home for adults, and afterwards, to a mental hospital. Here, left in isolation, and in the cold, without necessary health care and treatment, and deprived also of food and proper clothing, he died within seven days.

Rudul Sah was arrested in 1953 on charges of murdering his wife. He was acquitted by an Additional Sessions Judge, in 1968, who directed his release from jail, pending further orders. Rudul Sah languished in jail for 14 years after his acquittal, until his plight was highlighted in the media in 1982 and led to the filing of the PIL on his behalf.

In 2005, under the Article 26 procedure of the Constitution, the Irish Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of a bill referred to it by the President. This bill authorized charges for in-patient services, provided by the public health service, to be imposed on certain people, in most cases, elderly people of limited means.

Following a newspaper report regarding a destitute woman who died on a busy street four days after giving birth to a baby girl, the Court brought this public interest litigation (PIL) on its own motion. The Court also asked the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), an ESCR-Net member organization, to file an amicus brief on the status of maternal health for destitute pregnant and lactating women in Delhi, and to suggest appropriate remedies. HRLN’s amicus outlined myriad state failures to implement government schemes providing for food and health services to women and marginalized groups.