DAA News Network
USA: Legal action against cuts to benefits for disabled people
Posted 09/07-11 at 21.50
Advocacy groups in North Carolina have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) over deep cuts in Medicaid benefits to people with learning difficulties The lawsuit claims that the new ...
UK: Legal action threatened over cuts to disability benefit
Posted 09/07-11 at 21.10
The Disability Alliance (DA), a disability charity, has threatened to take legal action against the government over plans to cut Disability Living Allowance (DLA). A survey by DA found that half of employed DLA claimants may have to give up work ...
Australia: Rape of disabled people ‘too hard to prosecute’
Posted 29/06-11 at 01.57
Leena Sudano, Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner in South Australia, and the Pubic Advocate, John Brayley, have met with the police to discuss details of recent cases of rape and serious sexual assault against disabled people th ...
USA: Legal victory and ban on restraints in institutions
Posted 28/06-11 at 00.37
Since 1997, about 200 of the 300 people living at the Minnesota Extended Treatment Options (METO), a residential institution for people with learning difficulties in Cambridge, were restrained by staff, sometimes for nothing more than touching a pizz ...
USA: Judge rejects government case against residential institution for people with learning difficulties
Posted 15/06-11 at 16.18
District Court Judge Leon Holmes has dismissed most of the claims made by the U.S. Department of Justice that the 500 disabled residents of the Conway Human Development Center (CHDC) in Arkansas were subjected to abuse and neglect, poor medical care, ...
USA: Law suit to stop cuts to in-home support for disabled people
Posted 06/06-11 at 14.58
In North Carolina advocates have filed a federal class-action lawsuit seeking to block the state from cutting in-home care services to 4,000 disabled people who need extensive assistance to remain at home and out of an institution. "People with d ...
Uganda: Demand to release prisoners found not guilty because of severe mental health problems
Posted 02/05-11 at 14.49
Human Rights Watch has written to the Ugandan minister of justice asking that he release 11men who remain in prison although they had been found not guilty because of impaired mental health (‘by reason of insanity'). They had all been sent to priso ...
Canada: Update on deportation of family with disabled child
Posted 24/04-11 at 16.05
As reported previously, a French family with a disabled daughter had been ordered to be deported from Canada because of the ‘burden' she would impose on health and social care services. In 2010, a Federal Court judge ruled against a judicial re ...
USA: Disabled mother wins conditional right to see her children
Posted 07/04-11 at 13.40
In an interim court ruling, Abbie Dorn, a disabled woman who can only communicate by blinking, has been granted visiting rights with her 4-year old triplets. Two years after they were born, their parents divorced. Except for a four-day visit in D ...
USA: State sued over failure to move disabled people from institutional care
Posted 11/02-11 at 01.25
In a lawsuit against the state of Arkansas, the US Justice Department claims that residents of the Conway Human Development Center aren't being given enough of a chance to move out into the community. The state-run institution holds around 510 pe ...
Convention: CRPD is basis for court to order legal rights for woman with learning difficulties
Posted 17/11-10 at 16.26
The District Court in a Czech town Cheb ordered full restoration of legal-capacity of a woman with learning difficulties so that she could live independently. It is the first time that a Czech court based its decision on the concept of sup ...
UK: Disabled prisoner wins compensation for degrading treatment
Posted 11/11-10 at 14.02
Abdullah Baybasin, a 53-year-old wheelchair user, has won £20,000 compensation for having suffered degrading and inhuman treatment by the authorities in Belmarch Prison. He was sent there in 2004, but was acquitted at a retrial last month. ...
UK: Legal ruling means authorities can more easily cut services to elderly and disabled people
Posted 09/11-10 at 14.58
The Appeal Court has ruled that in order to save money it is legal for Kensington and Chelsea Council to withdraw services, even through the circumstances of the person using those services remains the same. The precedent set by this case means that ...
USA: Executing people with learning difficulties
Posted 13/09-10 at 22.21
On September 9th, Holly Wood, an African-American with learning difficulties, was executed in Alabama, for the 1993 murder of his ...
Nigeria: Court remands 24 disabled people over attack
Posted 07/09-10 at 11.02
An Upper Shari'ah Court in Kano State has ordered 24 disabled people to be held in custody for allegedly attacking the Special Adviser to Kano State Governor on Disabled Persons last week. According to the police the accused attacked the g ...