A/HRC/22/53 camps, secular and religious-based therapeutic boarding schools, boot camps, private residential treatment centres or traditional healing centres.74 58. In 2008 the mandate made significant strides in the development of norms for the abolition of forced psychiatric interventions on the basis of disability alone as a form of torture and ill-treatment (see A/63/175). The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities also provides authoritative guidance on the rights of persons with disabilities and prohibits involuntary treatment and involuntary confinement on the grounds of disability, superseding earlier standards such as the 1991 Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care (1991 Principles). 59. Severe abuses, such as neglect, mental and physical abuse and sexual violence, continue to be committed against people with psychosocial disabilities and people with intellectual disabilities in health-care settings.75 60. There are several areas in which the Special Rapporteur would like to suggest steps beyond what has already been proposed by the mandate in its efforts to promote the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as the new normative paradigm and call for measures to combat impunity. 1. A new normative paradigm 61. Numerous calls by the mandate to review the anti-torture framework in relation to persons with disabilities76 remain to be addressed. It is therefore necessary to reaffirm that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities offers the most comprehensive set of standards on the rights of persons with disabilities, inter alia, in the context of health care, where choices by people with disabilities are often overridden based on their supposed “best interests”, and where serious violations and discrimination against persons with disabilities may be masked as “good intentions” of health professionals (A/63/175, para. 49). 62. It is necessary to highlight additional measures needed to prevent torture and illtreatment against people with disabilities, by synthesizing standards and coordinating actions in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.77 2. Absolute ban on restraints and seclusion 63. The mandate has previously declared that there can be no therapeutic justification for the use of solitary confinement and prolonged restraint of persons with disabilities in psychiatric institutions; both prolonged seclusion and restraint may constitute torture and ill-treatment (A/63/175, paras. 55-56). The Special Rapporteur has addressed the issue of solitary confinement and stated that its imposition, of any duration, on persons with mental disabilities is cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (A/66/268, paras. 67-68, 78). Moreover, any restraint on people with mental disabilities for even a short period of time 74 75 76 77 14 See HRW, “Like a Death Sentence”: Abuses against Persons with Mental Disabilities in Ghana (2012). In November 2012, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights approved precautionary measures to protect 300 individuals in Guatemala City‟s psychiatric facility, where unspeakable forms of abuses were documented. See A/58/120; A/63/175, para. 41. See for example Organization of American States, Committee for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities, resolution CEDDIS/RES.1 (I-E/11) (2011), annex.