Feedback For more than a year various Saint-Petersburg courts considered the case of Andrey Sosnov, a disabled person with vision impairment, who had made a legal appeal against the refusal of the Saint Petersburg scientific and research psycho-neurological institute named after Bekhterev to allow him internship at the psychiatry faculty based on formal grounds (the absence of conditions, required for the work of a disabled persons with vision impairment).
Back in December 2014 the judge of the Nevsky district court of Saint Petersburg considered Sosnov’s legal appeal, which had been presented by lawyers of ADC “Memorial” Inessa Sakhno and Sergey Mikheyev, and ruled that Bekhterev Institute’s refusal to enlist Mr.Sosnov into the internship studies was illegal and that he was entitled to get Rb30,000 in compensation of moral damage.
More than 10 months passed since the decision of Nevsky district court, but the red tape continued. It was only on October 14, 2015 that the city court once again confirmed that the refusal to enroll Andrey Sosnov into internship program was illegal and that an earlier court ruling on compensation of moral damage was correct. Thus a very important court ruling, which defended the right of a disabled person to education and protected him from discrimination, was enforced.
The court declined to accept Bekhterev institute’s arguments concerning “high degree of harmful and hazardous conditions” during on-the-job training program and the supposed “real danger” for Mr.Sosnov of “being attacked by mentally ill persons”.
Andrey Sosnov expressed his gratitude to the lawyers of ADC “Memorial” and in particular to lawyer Olga Tseitlina, who participated in legal procedures at the court of appeal. “It was thanks to you that my right top education was finally confirmed”, he wrote.