September 18, 2026
By Katarzyna Widlas-Klimsiak How should the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) reconcile, under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a State’s obligation to secure appropriate psychiatric care with the limits that autonomy and consent place on imposing such care? Three recent judgments illuminate different sides of this problem. In Spivak v […]
February 28, 2025
By Louis Triaille In its Clipea and Grosu v. the Republic of Moldova judgment, handed down on November 19, 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) clarifies States’ positive obligations to protect in-patients with mental disabilities from ill-treatment in psychiatric institutions. The judgment illustrates an increasingly strict scrutiny by the ECtHR on institutional psychiatry, […]
March 18, 2019
By Peter Bartlett (Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Professor of Mental Health Law, Institute of Mental Health and School of Law, University of Nottingham) On its face, this case considers the duty of the State to protect the lives of voluntary (or informal) psychiatric patients under Article 2 of the ECHR (right to life). Below the […]