He was eighteen and had no one to speak for him

I share a first name with Valentin Câmpeanu. That is all we share. He was born in Romania in 1985, abandoned at birth and raised in state institutions. He was Roma, HIV-positive and had a severe intellectual disability. No family spoke for him, and no one had ever been appointed to represent his interests.

When he turned eighteen he had to leave the children's centre where he lived. In February 2004 he was moved to the Poiana Mare Neuropsychiatric Hospital, although his medical records did not show a psychiatric illness that required hospitalisation. Monitors from the Centre for Legal Resources, a Romanian NGO, found him alone in an unheated room, in a bed without bedding, wearing only a pyjama top. He could not eat or use the toilet without help, and staff refused to help him because they feared HIV. He was given sedatives, but not the antiretroviral treatment he needed. He died that evening.

A case with no one to bring it

Normally only a victim, or close relatives, can take a case to the European Court of Human Rights. Valentin had no relatives who would act for him. In 2014 the Court's Grand Chamber decided that, in these exceptional circumstances, the Centre for Legal Resources could bring the case on his behalf. Its reasoning was simple: otherwise the most vulnerable people, the ones with no one to speak for them, could never have their cases heard.

The Court found that Romania had violated his right to life, by placing him in an institution that could not give him the care he needed and by failing to investigate his death effectively. It also asked Romania to make sure that people with disabilities in similar situations have access to independent representation.

Why it still matters

The disability rights movement has a short rallying cry: nothing about us without us. Valentin's story shows what happens when there is no one at all. It is easy to read it as history. I read it as a checklist. Who speaks today for an adult with an intellectual disability who has no family? Who visits the institutions where people live far from public view? Who notices when someone is given sedatives instead of treatment?

These questions have answers in law: guardianship and support measures, the Ombudsman's monitoring visits, the duty of the state to investigate every suspicious death in its care. Rights on paper only work when someone uses them. In Valentin's case, it was a small NGO that refused to let his death disappear.

What you can do

• If you see neglect or abuse in a care institution, report it to the Ombudsman (Avocatul Poporului) and to the county social assistance directorate.
• Support the organisations that monitor closed institutions. Their visits are often the only outside eyes.
• Remember the name. Cases like this change the law only if people know about them.