back

Experts Urge Authorities to Change Approach to Ensuring Access to Justice for People with Disabilities

15 December 2021

Zoom.us capture


The national program on the social inclusion of people with disabilities for 2017-2022 does not clearly delimit the responsibilities of the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM), of the Court Administration Agency (CAA) and of courts of law on court accessibility. Experts recommend to the authorities to include concrete duties as well as to ensure the financing of works for equipping courts with access ramps and other conditions for access to justice of people with different forms of disability. On 14 December inst., API and the Center for the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) held a roundtable “How to Ensure Access to Courts for People with Disabilities,” and the participants discussed the existing issues and the measures required for this purpose.

At the beginning of the round table, Elena Stajila, program director at CRPD, presented some data on the evaluation of court buildings in the country. Fifty-two percent of the 25 buildings evaluated are inaccessible to people with locomototion disabilities. "Unfortunately, none of the 25 courts is accessible for people with visual impairments, and the situation of people with hearing and psychosocial disabilities is even worse. Only 16% of the buildings have visual orientation signs and icons," the expert said. In the last year, nine buildings have become more accessible to people with disabilities, including thanks to the support provided by the CRPD. A survey results show that 55% of court officials invoke financial insufficiency as the main reason for not adapting buildings to the needs of people with disabilities; 14% consider such measures inappropriate because new premises will be built; and 31% invoke damaged condition of the buildings, lack of specialists who would perform the works properly, technical impossibilities, etc. "The actions planned by the Government do not have sufficient financial coverage, and some ambiguous wording such as ‘within the limits of the funds allocated’ affects the predictability and sustainability of funding. In addition, since the same budget line includes the costs for ensuring access to courts and those for capital/current repairs creates conditions for court managers to give priority to repair works over accessibility works," E. Stajila stressed.

 

The construction of new court buildings often fails to take into account the need to ensure access for people with disabilities, said Ion Cibotarică, program director at CRPD: "We have looked at the construction plan for the new building of Edinet District Court and found that neither the technical regulations nor the principles of universal design are observed, which must take into account the requirements and needs of different categories of people with disabilities and others with reduced mobility: young children, including in strollers, the elderly, pregnant women, which in Chișinău alone make up 20% of the total population. The basic things are missing here: access ramps, toilets, other specific needs. Calculations show that it is at least three times more expensive to rebuild an already built building than to allocate money from the beginning for such needs.”

 

Petru Vîrlan, Deputy Director of the Court Administration Agency, acknowledged the existence of problems in this field, expressing his openness for consultations with experts to ensure access of people with disabilities to courts. Referring to the planning of the Edineț courthouse, the deputy director of CAA said he did not know why the needs of people with disabilities had not been taken into account in this case: "My colleagues and I will look into the situation and the reasons why this issue had been missed out. We are open to working with the CRPD experts, whom we will engage when reviewing these issues. As we are late with the realization of the plan approved by the Parliament regarding the construction of the new buildings, we will request a revision of the execution terms and we will act promptly.”

 

Ștefănița Rotaru, Main Consultant within the Sector Budget Policy Division at the Ministry of Finance, explained the responsibilities of the Ministry regarding the allocation of money for the adaptation of old buildings to the needs of people with disabilities. Regarding the proposal to plan and report court costs separately, she said this was difficult but the Ministry was willing to review this and other funding issues, urging non-governmental organizations to submit formal requests.

 

During the round table, Ion Talpa, Acting Chief Judge of Bălți Court of Appeal, Ion Botezatu, Acting Chief Judge of Comrat District Court, Dumitru Agachi, Head of Court Secretariat, Ina Breazu, Deputy Head of the Secretariat at Chisinau District Court, and Eduard Puiu, Acting Head of the Secretariat of Bălți District Court also expressed their views on the issue of ensuring access to court buildings for persons with disabilities.

 

Full recording of the roundtable is available HERE.

 

The event took place as part of the National Campaign for Healthy Justice, carried out by several non-governmental organizations of the Republic of Moldova.