Emily Schneider
Special Contributor, Blog Entry #1
“Go to hell, you go to hell! Never would a first year intern prescribe this medication to someone after only one high blood pressure reading, yet he prescribed it to me and my child died. And now you are saying he is innocent! He is a murderer and you condone it!”
I pushed forward with the crowd, through the doors and into the courtroom. It was my third day in India, my second day working at Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), and my first time in an Indian courtroom. I stood on my tiptoes and craned my neck. I could see the woman, wearing the traditional, and required, white collar of an advocate, screaming at the judge.
The onlookers around me gasped at her behavior. The man next to me whispered to his colleague, “She is not right, she has called the judge a murderer indirectly; certainly she needs to see a doctor.” His audience nodded in agreement. The judge said something inaudible and soon guards entered the room and pushed through the crowd. They dragged the woman out as she screamed accusations and insults at the judge, the other attorney, and the crowd.
Court guards forced us to all exit the courtroom and as people milled about in the hall I heard snippets of conversations in English. It seemed that the consensus was that she was crazy. People whispered that she would go to jail for this. My supervisor found me in the crowd and explained the woman’s story. She was an attorney who experienced complications with her pregnancy. After seeing a doctor, she was prescribed a medication to lower her blood pressure. She later lost the baby and blamed the doctor because of the blood pressure medication he prescribed. She then sued him for malpractice and I had just witnessed the hearing. My supervisor explained that the Chief Judge of the High Court in Delhi was a patient man for allowing her to rant so long. “He’s in a good mood today, let’s hope it carries into the afternoon for our hearing as well,” she said.
We were in court that day to hear the arguments for a case concerning torture of disabled persons. In India, there are limited resources available to those with disabilities or families of those with disabilities. When a child is born with a disability, the family usually abandons them due to lack of resources and they are put in a government-run care facility.
Recently, one of these facilities failed an inspection by the state. Due to intense media coverage, the facility’s failure was brought to the attention of HRLN. Between December and January, this care facility logged 19 fatalities due to the atrocious conditions of the home. Over 700 disabled children lived in a space meant to serve 300 children maximum; and they were assisted by only three care-takers. HRLN filed a petition with the court in January, and by the time of the first hearing on February 6, more children had died.
At that hearing, the court ordered the care facility to reform and set another hearing to follow up on the matter. Since February, the care facility has failed to improve and it now houses over 900 children. The judge, who has a reputation for supporting NGO’s, signed a court order allowing HRLN to visit and inspect the facility. This was an incredible victory for HRLN because under normal circumstances only the State is allowed to visit or inspect a care facility.
If HRLN conducts inspections and finds after a set timeframe that the facility is not improving, they can bring the matter before the court again. Both my supervisor and the arguing attorney found this judgment more than satisfactory. My supervisor was so elated she cautioned me against believing it was always this easy to achieve victory. I was dumbfounded. This did not seem like a victory to me. It seemed like a compromise made only by the goodwill of the judge that day. However, I’m discovering that most causes HRLN takes on are losing ones from the start. Thus, even a compromise, with the slimmest opportunity of bringing real change, is an improvement.