to ensure that persons with disabilities, including mental disorders and other
psychosocial disabilities, can enjoy or exercise their human rights on an equal
basis with others. Article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities defines “reasonable accommodation” as:
necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a
disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to
ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal
basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Special Rapporteur on Torture has noted the denial or lack of reasonable
accommodations for persons with disabilities may create detention and living
conditions amounting to ill-treatment and torture.65
The CRPD also reinforces the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment. Article 15 requires States to “take all
effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent persons
with disabilities, on an equal basis with others, from being subjected to torture or
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture has said that solitary
confinement must never be used in health care settings as it segregates persons
with serious or acute illness and leaves them without constant attention
and access to medical services. In regards to restraints, both physical or
pharmacological, the SPT regards them as forms of deprivation of liberty and
should be considered only as measures of last resort for safety reasons. Their
use must be subject to a strict framework as there is a high potential for abuse.
Restraints must never be used for convenience. 66
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture further elaborates:67
The mandate has previously declared that there can be no therapeutic
justification for the use of solitary confinement and prolonged restraint
of persons with disabilities in psychiatric institutions; both prolonged
seclusion and restraint may constitute torture and ill-treatment
(A/63/175, paras. 55-56). The Special Rapporteur has addressed
the issue of solitary confinement and stated that its imposition, of
any duration, on persons with mental disabilities is cruel, inhuman or
65 United Nations General Assembly, Interim Report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture A/63/174 28 July
2008
74
66
Approach of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment regarding the rights of persons institutionalized and treated medically without informed
consent, adopted at the 27th session of the SPT (16-20 November 2015), pars. 9- 10.
67
www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.53_English.pdf.