The European Court of Human Rights (Court) reached its final decision in the case of H.H. v. Finland on 9 December 2025. The case concerned the refusal of the Finnish courts to grant an oral hearing to a woman who had been deprived of her liberty and subjected to forced treatment in a psychiatric hospital. The Court’s judgment highlights the seemingly irreconcilable differences between the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in relation to deprivation of liberty. During the last two decades, the Court has shown willingness to integrate some of the language and principles of the CRPD into its caselaw. However, this decision demonstrates that the Court remains unwilling to prohibit depriving persons with disabilities of their liberty on an equal basis with others.

The applicant in this case, Ms H.H., had been committed to a psychiatric unit for involuntary treatment and administered medication without her consent. The Finnish courts refused to grant her an oral hearing in proceedings where she was appealing her committal decisions. This, it was reasoned, was justified on the basis that an oral hearing had been held in relation to one of her previous committal decisions two years earlier, and it was therefore unnecessary to hold another.

The Court concluded that there had been a violation of Ms H.H.’s right to liberty under Article 5 § 4 ECHR. It held that the principle of procedural fairness required that she be heard again because she had last been heard two years previously, and this had been in separate proceedings (para 35). Yet, the judgment reveals the lower level of rights protection to which disabled people are entitled under the ECHR. In reaching its decision, the Court highlighted its position that ‘persons of unsound mind’ are an exception to the rule that ‘[n]o one shall be deprived of his liberty’ under Article 5 § 1 ECHR (para 29). This, however, is contrary to Article 14 CRPD which holds that ‘the existence of a disability shall in no case justify a deprivation of liberty.’

The Court reiterated its caselaw concerning the procedural rights of ‘persons of unsound mind’ deprived of their liberty, including that these proceedings ‘need not always be attended by the same guarantees as those required under Article 6 § 1 for civil or criminal litigation’ (Stanev v. Bulgaria, para 171). For example, the Court identified that where an administrative court has up-to-date medical reports, and the applicant has access to the relevant material and is able to put forward their point of view, there may be no violation of the ECHR, as in the case of Derungs v. Switzerland (para 31).

The standards of the CRPD were not cited as relevant international material, despite the fact that the Court has done so in similar cases in the past (e.g., Plesó v. Hungary, para 37). The Court highlighted its own caselaw rather than the standards under the CRPD, for example that ‘mental health laws that permit forced treatment…must be abolished in order to ensure that full legal capacity is restored to persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others’ (General Comment No. 1, para 7). This demonstrates that, almost twenty years after the adoption of the CRPD by the UN General Assembly, the Court’s integration of its norms continues to be sporadic.

Moreover, Finland is party to both the ECHR and the CRPD. The CRPD Committee noted with concern in September 2025 that Finland lacks ‘measures to repeal laws and legal provisions allowing the involuntary detention of persons with disabilities on the basis of impairment’ (para 26). Finland is therefore not meeting the higher standards of rights protection provided by the CRPD, and it appears that it will not be under pressure to do so by the Court.

In the future, the Court could choose to promote the enforcement of CRPD standards in countries like Finland by citing the CRPD as relevant international material and integrating CRPD standards into its reasoning. Until then, the Court diverges from dominant disability rights perspectives by failing to promote the treatment of disabled people on an equal basis with others.