A 76-year-old Moldovan, Mihail Dogotari, is savouring his international court victory over the politically subordinated police force and justice structures that tried to have him locked away in a mental health institution.
His troubles began on May 29, 2014, when the Minister of Labour, Valentina Buliga, visited his small town of Glodeni in the north of Moldova, which is home to no more than 8,000 people.
After more than 40 years of hard work as a farming engineer, Dogotari was angry that his pension amounted to no more than 1,270 lei [65 euros] a month, he told BIRN in an interview.
That day, he just wanted to complain to the minister about the injustice in his pension calculation, but says the minister made fun of him, saying he had enough money, and implying that he was also insane.
He admits he then struck her. “She raised her hand first to me and I tackled her attack and hit her back,” the man said. He pleaded guilty to the incident.
But his problems were just starting. On his way home, he was stopped by the chief of the local police. Another car filled with policemen was waiting in front of his house.
He was told then that he was being taken to Balti, the second largest city in Moldova, as there were no competent people in Glodeni to deal with his case.
But in Balti, the car took another road, away from the police station. “Only then did I understand that we were heading to the psychiatric centre,” he told BIRN.
At first, he did not even want to enter the facility but says he was beaten and dragged in by two policemen and a guard from the hospital who had received “a call from above”.
Finally, he got home on the same day, after spending a few hours in the facility.
But in a fast-forwarded trial, on July 2, 2014, he was ordered to pay a fine of 4,000 lei [200 euros] and be held in a mental institution for one month.
He lost his appeal against the verdict on August 28, 2014, and on September 18, was seized by the police from the market, where he was selling some gardening tools and dragged into a car. It took him straight to the Codru Mental Problems Hospital near Chisinau.
The police even carried with them even his medical record, to be sure he would be locked in there the same day.
“We went up to the 17th section of the Chronicle Alcoholism Section, and I was hospitalized. It’s a tough section. There were not even functioning toilets, we had to pour water; it was a disaster. There was no hot water,” he remembers.
His lawyer from the Promo-Lex human rights NGO got him out after six days, but on November 4, 2014, prosecutors again demanded that he be locked up in a mental institution facility as he had run away. The request was denied twice.
In September 2014, Promo-LEX filed a complaint in his name to the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR.
The court ordered the Moldovan government on September 3 to pay him moral damages and court costs totalling 7,680 euros.
“We have come to see a little justice in Moldova,” Dogotari says.
On the other hand, the still current Minister of Health, Labour and Social Protection, Buliga, insists that she was the real victim, and that it was “immoral to hit a woman”, although she adds that she “has forgiven the old man”.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
