Memorandum from the British Council of
Disabled People (DDB 7)
DISABLED PEOPLE'S RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS BILL—DRAFT
BCODP has been working on a new piece of legislation
to replace the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Below is a
public draft and your comments are welcomed.
DISABLED PEOPLE'S
RIGHTS AND
FREEDOMS BILL—A
BILL TO
SECURE THE
FULL AND
EQUAL HUMAN
AND CIVIL
RIGHTS OF
DISABLED PEOPLE
IN THE
UNITED KINGDOM
All protections against discrimination and promotion
of rights in this Bill must take account of the diversity of disabled
people and their diverse needs and not discriminate on any basis,
eg on grounds of race, culture, religion, gender, sexuality, age,
immigration status or any other status.
All definitions and language should be based
on the Social Model of Disability, which recognises disability
as the discrimination faced by people with impairments of body
or mind.
PART I
In this Act—
Definition of disability and disabled person—based
on the Social Model of Disability.
Both direct discrimination and indirect discrimination
should be covered. Indirect discrimination is where some barrier
is created which, although it does not directly relate to disability
or impairment, means that it is more of a barrier for disabled
people generally than for non-disabled people generally.
PART II
Areas to be covered:
It shall be unlawful for any person or body
to discriminate against a disabled person in respect of:
— Provision of all goods and services:
both public and private sector provision.
— Employment: all employers, without
exception, including voluntary workers, councillors and all elected
representatives, statutory office holders.
— Education: pre-school, school, further
and higher education, adult education, professional education,
vocational and non-vocational training, work experience and work-related
training. Having to attend segregated educational provision or
a special school or college is discriminatory.
— Qualifications and examinations:
for qualifications of all types.
— Physical environments: all public
physical environments, built and natural, to be accessible to
allow free and independent movement, including access to all service
providers, employment, education and transport.
— Transport: air travel, sea travel,
and all other forms of travel to be fully accessible by a declared
end-date.
— Health Care: there should be access
to all primary and secondary health care, treatments and interventions
and access to health information.
— Housing: all housing should be accessible,
whether or not occupied by a disabled person, and there should
be a choice including size and location. This should include the
right to own property and to have access to social housing.
— Communication: the provision of support
to enable written and oral communication. Also, to ensure the
provision of clear and accessible information in different appropriate
formats eg large text, Braille, audiotape, videotape with British
Sign Language, floppy disk, CD-ROM etc, including accessible websites.
— Participation in social, leisure,
citizenship duties (eg jury service) and political activity.
— Voting: Voting, by whatever mechanism,
should be accessible within the same choices of place and time
as everyone else. Detention in hospitals or other institutional
settings, except prisons, should not deny a disabled person the
right to vote.
— Abortion: Grounds for abortion should
not discriminate in relation to disability. Potential parents
should be free from pressure to abort a disabled foetus.
PART III
Over and above the right to protection from
discrimination as outlined in Part 11 and provisions for obtaining
rights under the Human Rights Act, Disabled people should have
their rights and freedoms protected through the following:
— Pre-birth Actions: Medical intervention,
manipulation and procedure which results in the elimination of
a gene, embryo or foetus should not discriminate on the grounds
of disability.
— The Right to Live: The right to be
recognised as a human being, including the right not to be subject,
at any stage of life, to any form of euthanasia or withdrawal
or failure to provide social support, personal assistance, medical
treatment, pain relief, food, water or any other support necessary
to seek to maintain the best possible quality of life, including
not to be subject to any threat or pressure, on any basis, that
such a withdrawal or failure to provide may occur, including cost
or inconvenience to others.
— The Right to Freedom of Movement:
which includes the right not to be forced into an institution,
either for education or as an alternative to domicilary care,
on any grounds.
— Independent living: this is the right
of every disabled person, regardless of age, to have choice and
control over how they live, including the right to personal assistance
based on self-assessment which should include a social life and
the right to adequate personal protection. No charge should be
made for this right.
— Benefits: These should be based on
the real extra costs of dealing with the barriers to having a
full life (disability), not on impairment. Benefits should fully
reflect those costs, and be flexible in operation to enable disabled
people to exercise their other rights without penalty.
— Genetic-counselling this should be
impartial and external to the medical profession and there should
be a clear disciplinary offence to put pressure on a family who
are being counselled.
— The right to sexuality: including
freedom of sexual orientation, provision of sex education to young
disabled people, freedom from pressure to have sex or not to have
sex, and the right to help with sex including access to assistance,
therapy and drugs, the right to form close, meaningful and sexual
relationships, to get married or otherwise have a publicly recognised
relationship, to have children and be a parent, and to be a couple
or family living together. The right to have full choice over
birth control including the right not to be sterilised without
consent.
— The right to make choices and decisions:
and for those choices to be respected and implemented.
— The right to privacy and freedom
from media intrusion.
— The right to be allowed to express
an opinion: and to be heard fairly and without prejudicial discrimination,
on any matter that affects the disabled person.
— The right to independent advocacy:
the right to have an independent appropriate advocate of the disabled
person's choice, who can help the disabled person to get their
rights and challenge the system including the right to a full
range of properly funded, well-publicised and resourced advocacy
provision including self-advocacy, peer advocacy, citizen advocacy,
group advocacy, legal advocacy and community advocacy, which is
publicly recognised by all public and statutory bodies, employers
and service providers.
— The right to form and join organisations
run and controlled by disabled people as a basis for collective
action and activity.
— The right to protection against torture
or degrading and inhuman treatment: including freedom from personal
attack from disablist language and behaviour (including disablist
jokes), inhuman and degrading treatment within the home or without
and that any crime which is aggravated by disablist behaviour
should be treated as a hate crime.
PART IV
— Positive actions: It should be the
duty of all public bodies to make appropriate arrangements so
that they:
(a) eliminate unlawful discrimination against
disabled people on grounds of disability; and
(b) promote equality of opportunity for disabled
people.
— Disabled people should have the same
access to the same minimum standards of living as non-disabled
people with the additional costs of disability taken into account.
— BSL should be recognised as a national
language for all purposes and consequently appropriate resources
should be provided to put it into effect.
— There should be an Independent Living
Centre (ILC) in every district, unitary or metropolitan borough
authority area. (An ILC is an advocacy organisation controlled
by disabled people and providing services of their choice to disabled
people). These Independent Living Centres should act as technical
assistance centres for employers and providers under this Bill.
— Segregated educational provision
should be ended by 2020 and funding, training and support should
be provided for inclusive education and emotional literacy.
— All services to disabled people must
follow the individual and be provided at the same level of resources
and empowerment, wherever the individual moves to.
— All decisions made by public bodies
at any level must be discussed with organisations which represent,
and are run by, disabled people.
PART V—ENFORCEMENT
If there are costs of implementation regarding
positive actions these will fall to the public bodies concerned.
If there are costs of addressing discriminatory
issues and practices, then, within the concept of reasonableness
they will fall on:
— Where it is employment it is the
employer.
— Where it is regarding goods or services
then it is the provider.
— Where it is neither of these, public
funding.
To the extent that the cost is not considered
reasonable for the employer or service provider to pay for, then
the government has a duty to make a grant to make the difference.
PART VI—ENFORCEMENT
The level of remedy should be similar to the
amount of discrimination and should be available through appropriate
tribunals, county courts or High Court.
The costs of enforcement should be fully covered
by legal aid, irrespective of income.
Disabled litigants should have all access costs
covered in all legal cases.
The Disability Rights Commission or any other
organisation may take a court case on behalf of a group of disabled
people (a class action). In keeping with the Human Rights Act,
these actions should be available with legal aid protection.
PART VII
This Bill should be more important than (take
precedence over) all other legislation, and ideally should form
part of a Bill of Rights within a written constitution for the
United Kingdom.
Any person taking a case under this Bill is
not stopped from taking a case under the Human Rights Act.
February 2004
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