Life (Right to)

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This High Court case was brought with the support of Hakijamii, a human rights organization based in Nairobi that has been a member of ESCR-Net since 2005; and stemmed from the request of more than 1,000 individuals, evicted from their homes located in six communities commonly known as the Medina Location of Garissa municipality.

In July 2004, a group of residents of the Matanza/Riachuelo basin filed a suit before the Supreme Court of Argentina against the national government, the Province of Buenos Aires, the City of Buenos Aires and 44 companies seeking compensation for damages resulting from pollution of the basin, stoppage of contaminating activities, and remedy for collective environmental damage.

This case was brought on behalf of Shanti Devi, a women living in poverty from a Scheduled Caste, after she died as the result of being refused adequate maternal healthcare despite the fact that she qualified for the free services under existing state-sponsored schemes. In 2008, Shanti Devi was forced to carry a dead fetus in her womb for five days after being denied medical treatment at several hospitals because her husband was unable to show a valid ration card for medical services, despite being qualified for one as they lived below the poverty line.

Since February 2003, following the emergence of an armed conflict in the Darfur region of the Sudan, militiamen known as Janjaweed have engaged in forcibly evicting, killing, and raping thousands of Black indigenous people in that region.  The complainants alleged these acts were a failure of the government of Sudan to respect and protect the rights of the people of Darfur and in particular violated articles 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12 (1), 14, 16, 18 (1) and 22 of the African Charter on Human and People's Rights.  In affirming admissibility of the complaint, the Commission quoted its decisi

A group of homeless people erected overhead shelter in the form of tents, tarps and cardboard boxes at a local park in the City of Victoria.  The City sought a permanent injunction (legal order requiring the homeless to refrain from erecting shelters) and declaration that such structures contravened the Park Regulation Bylaw and Streets and Traffic Bylaw. The City had a documented shortfall of spaces in homeless shelters.

ESCR-Net called on the President of Ecuador to protect the human right to life and physical integrity of Mr. Leonidas Iza, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities in Ecuador (CONAIE) and his family members.

The Naz Foundation India, a non-governmental organization committed to HIV/AIDS intervention and prevention, filed a public interest litigation in the Delhi High Court challenging the constitutionality of Section 377 of the India Penal Code, which makes it illegal to engage in any "unnatural" sexual act, defined as sex other than heterosexual intercourse. The Delhi High Court dismissed the original writ of petition in 2004 for lack of a cause of action.

The Colombian Constitutional Court has among its functions the review of tutela actions. The Court annually reviews a small proportion of the more than 300,000 tutela actions resolved by lower judges; 36% of which are related to the right to health according to data of the Colombian Ombudsman's Office for 2005. Decision T-760 of 2008 accumulated 22 of these cases. However, the Court did not limit itself to reviewing and resolving these individual cases.

This petition was brought to challenge the constitutionality of imposing a "capitation fee" (a fee based on the number of persons to whom a service is provided, rather than the actual cost of providing a service) on those people who wanted to enter a private medical school and were not admitted to the "government seats". These seats are reserved by the Government of India for members of communities that are explicitly recognized by the Indian Constitution as requiring support to overcome historic discrimination, or other groups designated by the government.

The claims brought by four NGOs against former Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) alleging a gross mismanagement of public finances by the government leading to degrading conditions, shortages of medicine, education and basic services. The government allegedly failed to provide these services impairing its people from obtaining adequate medical treatment and from accessing basic education.