394 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "State Parties shall take all appropriate policy, legislative and other measures to ensure this right (to participate in political and public life), on the basis of equality, including through: (…) e) Repealing or amending laws that on the basis of disability restrict the right of persons with disabilities to vote, stand for or remain in public office. "
- "Persons with disabilities have the right to be effectively protected and to positively engage. The law itself shall guarantee the substantive equality of all those within a given jurisdiction. Thus, the recognition that all persons with disabilities are equal under the law means that there should be no laws that allow for specific denial, restriction or limitation of the rights of persons with disabilities, and that disability should be mainstreamed in all legislation and policies."
- "Reasonable accommodation duties are different from accessibility duties. Both aim to guarantee accessibility, but the duty to provide accessibility through universal design or assistive technologies is an ex ante duty, whereas the duty to provide reasonable accommodation is an ex nunc duty."
- "As an ex ante duty, accessibility must be built into systems and processes without regard to the need of a particular person with a disability, for example, to have access to a building, a service or a product, on an equal basis with others. States parties must set accessibility standards that are developed and adopted in consultation with organizations of persons with disabilities, consistent with article 4 (3) of the Convention. The duty of accessibility is a proactive, systemic duty."
- "As an ex nunc duty, reasonable accommodation must be provided from the moment that a person with a disability requires access to non-accessible situations or environments, or wants to exercise his or her rights. (…) It is important to note that the duty to provide reasonable accommodation is not limited to situations in which the person with a disability has asked for an accommodation or in which it could be proved that the alleged duty bearer was actually aware that the person in question had a disability. It should also apply in situations where a potential duty bearer should have realized that the person in question had a disability that might require accommodations to address barriers to exercising rights."
- "The duty to provide reasonable accommodation in accordance with articles 2 and 5 of the Convention can be broken down into two constituent parts. The first part imposes a positive legal obligation to provide a reasonable accommodation which is a modification or adjustment that is necessary and appropriate where it is required in a particular case to ensure that a person with a disability can enjoy or exercise her or his rights. The second part of this duty ensures that those required accommodations do not impose a disproportionate or undue burden on the duty bearer."
- "Because the gradual realization of accessibility in the built environment, public transportation and information and communication services may take time, reasonable accommodation may be used as a means to provide access to an individual in the meantime, as it is an immediate duty."
- "To ensure consistency between articles 5 and 12 of the Convention, States parties should: (a) Reform existing legislation to prohibit discriminatory denial of legal capacity, premised on status-based, functional or outcome-based models. Where appropriate, replace those with models of supported decision-making, taking into account universal adult legal capacity without any form of discrimination."
- "States parties should aim to: (…) (b) Ensure that the electoral process is accessible to all persons with disabilities, including before, during and after elections."
- "States parties should aim to: (…) (c) Provide reasonable accommodation to individual persons with disabilities and support measures based on the individual requirements of persons with disabilities to participate in political and public life."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.2. with regard to legal capacity: 7.2.1. delink the right to vote from legal capacity and full guardianship and, recalling Assembly Resolution 2039 (2015), replace substitute decision-making mechanisms with supported decision-making mechanisms, in respect of their international commitments."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.3 with regard to combating discrimination against and stigmatisation of persons with disabilities: (...) 7.3.3. provide civic education in accessible formats."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: 7.4.1. ensure physical accessibility of public buildings, including polling stations, national, regional and local parliaments and government buildings, and guarantee that at least one polling station in every election district provides full accessibility."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: (...) 7.4.2. ensure the provision of information about electoral processes, voting procedures and political programmes in accessible formats, including in easy-to-read and easy-to-understand versions, with sign interpretation when required, subtitles for videos and Braille versions; 7.4.3. provide ballot papers in accessible formats and tactile voting devices for blind people in at least one polling station in every election district."
- "Persons with disabilities should not be considered a homogeneous group. Persons with various types of disabilities have different needs and may require different forms of assistance and support."
- "It is not acceptable to remove and/or limit the right to vote or to stand as a candidate on the basis of any type of disability, including intellectual or psychosocial disabilities."
- "Supported decision-making means that a person can receive the necessary assistance to adopt certain decisions in life, including when exercising the right to vote. Such mechanisms should replace the substituted decision-making ones, providing persons with disabilities with the necessary support to exercise their electoral and political rights without undue limitation."
- "Key electoral information should be made available in multiple, accessible formats, which may include Braille, large print, audio, easy-to-understand versions and sign language. This includes information about how to participate in an election, how to lodge complaints and appeals, results and updates from the election administration."
- "State Parties shall take reasonable and progressive step measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right, and such measures shall, among others, apply to: (…) c) Information, communications, sign languages and tactile interpretation services, braille, audio and other services, including electronic services and emergency services; (...) e) The modification of all inaccessible infrastructure and the universal design of new infrastructure. "
- "State Parties shall take all appropriate policy, legislative and other measures to ensure this right (to participate in political and public life), on the basis of equality, including through: a) Undertaking or facilitating systematic and comprehensive civic education to encourage full participation of persons with disabilities in democracy and development processes, including by ensuring civic and voter education materials are availed in accessible formats. "
- "State Parties shall take all appropriate policy, legislative and other measures to ensure this right (to participate in political and public life), on the basis of equality, including through: (…) c) Putting in place reasonable accommodations and other support measures consistent with the secrecy of the ballot, including as appropriate, accessibility of polling stations and facilitating assisted voting, for persons with disabilities to enable their effective participation in political and public life in accordance with national laws. "
- "State Parties shall take all appropriate policy, legislative and other measures to ensure this right (to participate in political and public life), on the basis of equality, including through: (…) e) Repealing or amending laws that on the basis of disability restrict the right of persons with disabilities to vote, stand for or remain in public office. "
- "Persons with disabilities have the right to be effectively protected and to positively engage. The law itself shall guarantee the substantive equality of all those within a given jurisdiction. Thus, the recognition that all persons with disabilities are equal under the law means that there should be no laws that allow for specific denial, restriction or limitation of the rights of persons with disabilities, and that disability should be mainstreamed in all legislation and policies."
- "Reasonable accommodation duties are different from accessibility duties. Both aim to guarantee accessibility, but the duty to provide accessibility through universal design or assistive technologies is an ex ante duty, whereas the duty to provide reasonable accommodation is an ex nunc duty."
- "As an ex ante duty, accessibility must be built into systems and processes without regard to the need of a particular person with a disability, for example, to have access to a building, a service or a product, on an equal basis with others. States parties must set accessibility standards that are developed and adopted in consultation with organizations of persons with disabilities, consistent with article 4 (3) of the Convention. The duty of accessibility is a proactive, systemic duty."
- "As an ex nunc duty, reasonable accommodation must be provided from the moment that a person with a disability requires access to non-accessible situations or environments, or wants to exercise his or her rights. (…) It is important to note that the duty to provide reasonable accommodation is not limited to situations in which the person with a disability has asked for an accommodation or in which it could be proved that the alleged duty bearer was actually aware that the person in question had a disability. It should also apply in situations where a potential duty bearer should have realized that the person in question had a disability that might require accommodations to address barriers to exercising rights."
- "The duty to provide reasonable accommodation in accordance with articles 2 and 5 of the Convention can be broken down into two constituent parts. The first part imposes a positive legal obligation to provide a reasonable accommodation which is a modification or adjustment that is necessary and appropriate where it is required in a particular case to ensure that a person with a disability can enjoy or exercise her or his rights. The second part of this duty ensures that those required accommodations do not impose a disproportionate or undue burden on the duty bearer."
- "Because the gradual realization of accessibility in the built environment, public transportation and information and communication services may take time, reasonable accommodation may be used as a means to provide access to an individual in the meantime, as it is an immediate duty."
- "To ensure consistency between articles 5 and 12 of the Convention, States parties should: (a) Reform existing legislation to prohibit discriminatory denial of legal capacity, premised on status-based, functional or outcome-based models. Where appropriate, replace those with models of supported decision-making, taking into account universal adult legal capacity without any form of discrimination."
- "States parties should aim to: (…) (b) Ensure that the electoral process is accessible to all persons with disabilities, including before, during and after elections."
- "States parties should aim to: (…) (c) Provide reasonable accommodation to individual persons with disabilities and support measures based on the individual requirements of persons with disabilities to participate in political and public life."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.2. with regard to legal capacity: 7.2.1. delink the right to vote from legal capacity and full guardianship and, recalling Assembly Resolution 2039 (2015), replace substitute decision-making mechanisms with supported decision-making mechanisms, in respect of their international commitments."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.3 with regard to combating discrimination against and stigmatisation of persons with disabilities: (...) 7.3.3. provide civic education in accessible formats."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: 7.4.1. ensure physical accessibility of public buildings, including polling stations, national, regional and local parliaments and government buildings, and guarantee that at least one polling station in every election district provides full accessibility."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: (...) 7.4.2. ensure the provision of information about electoral processes, voting procedures and political programmes in accessible formats, including in easy-to-read and easy-to-understand versions, with sign interpretation when required, subtitles for videos and Braille versions; 7.4.3. provide ballot papers in accessible formats and tactile voting devices for blind people in at least one polling station in every election district."
- "Persons with disabilities should not be considered a homogeneous group. Persons with various types of disabilities have different needs and may require different forms of assistance and support."
- "It is not acceptable to remove and/or limit the right to vote or to stand as a candidate on the basis of any type of disability, including intellectual or psychosocial disabilities."
- "Supported decision-making means that a person can receive the necessary assistance to adopt certain decisions in life, including when exercising the right to vote. Such mechanisms should replace the substituted decision-making ones, providing persons with disabilities with the necessary support to exercise their electoral and political rights without undue limitation."
- "Key electoral information should be made available in multiple, accessible formats, which may include Braille, large print, audio, easy-to-understand versions and sign language. This includes information about how to participate in an election, how to lodge complaints and appeals, results and updates from the election administration."
- "The CRPD Committee has consequently been very clear that the treaty does not permit the removal of legal capacity based on mental or intellectual disability. It is clear that neither general nor individualized court decisions are acceptable bases for the removal of suffrage rights. In 2011, in Bujdosó and five others v. Hungary, the Committee heard a case in which persons with intellectual disability were placed under partial or full guardianship and their names automatically removed from the electoral register. The Committee found that the “exclusion of the right to vote on the basis of a perceived, or actual psychosocial or intellectual disability, including a restriction pursuant to an individualized assessment, constitutes discrimination on the basis of disability”."
- "The strict application of universal design to all new goods, products, facilities, technologies and services should ensure full, equal and unrestricted access for all potential consumers, including persons with disabilities, in a way that takes full account of their inherent dignity and diversity."
- "Accessibility is related to groups, whereas reasonable accommodation is related to individuals. This means that the duty to provide accessibility is an ex ante duty. States parties therefore have the duty to provide accessibility before receiving an individual request to enter or use a place or service. (...) The obligation to implement accessibility is unconditional, i.e. the entity obliged to provide accessibility may not excuse the omission to do so by referring to the burden of providing access for persons with disabilities. "
- "The duty to provide reasonable accommodation is an ex nunc duty, which means that it is enforceable from the moment an individual with an impairment needs it in a given situation, for example, workplace or school, in order to enjoy her or his rights on an equal basis in a particular context. Here, accessibility standards can be an indicator, but may not be taken as prescriptive. Reasonable accommodation can be used as a means of ensuring accessibility for an individual with a disability in a particular situation. Reasonable accommodation seeks to achieve individual justice in the sense that non-discrimination or equality is assured, taking the dignity, autonomy and choices of the individual into account."
- "When defining accessibility standards, States parties have to take into account the diversity of persons with disabilities and ensure that accessibility is provided to persons of any gender and of all ages and types of disability."
- "The enfranchisement of foreigners, at least in the local context, is a major provision of the Council of Europe Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life at the Local Level. The Convention directly obliges states to “grant the right to vote and to stand for election in local authority elections” to foreign residents provided that they lawfully and habitually reside in the respective country for at least 5 years preceding the elections – giving also the possibility to shorten such a period of residency. "
- "While residency requirements are in principle a permissible restriction to this right, they must be reasonable. The criterion of reasonableness is arguably not complied with, when residence requirements in domestic laws prevent the political participation of IDPs, especially after forcible displacement."
- "Along similar lines, standards of the Council of Europe require member states to “grant electoral rights to all their citizens (nationals), without imposing residency requirements”, “to take appropriate legal and practical measures to enable internally displaced persons to effectively exercise their right to vote in national, regional or local elections and to ensure that this right is not infringed by obstacles of a practical nature” and “ to ensure that IDPs can exercise their right to participate in public affairs at all levels, including their right to vote or stand for election, which may require special measures such as IDP voter registration drives, or absentee ballots”."
- "There is thus no ‘best procedure’ for external voting. Much will depend on the context, such as the infrastructure of those foreign countries where external voting is to be held. The decision on suitability will depend on the costs and practical aspects of the different procedures for external voting (...)."
- "Entitlement to cast an external vote is usually linked to the general entitlement to vote that applies to all eligible electors in a country. However, there are sometimes extra requirements imposed on external electors, such as a minimum period of previous residence or an intention to return to the country. In some cases only limited groups of external electors may be eligible to vote, such as diplomats, other public officials and members of the armed forces, and their families."
- "Particularly where the right to vote is extended to all citizens who are resident abroad, regardless of intention to return, it may be desirable to have stricter eligibility rules for candidates. This would usually take the form of a residence requirement."