Inclusion Europe adopts a position paper on participation of people with intellectual disablities in political and public life

Inclusion Europe wrote a paper to explain that people with intellectual disabilities should have the right to participate in the political and public life of society. This means, for example, that people with intellectual disabilities should have the right to vote or the right to join an organisations to defend their rights. Governments should make sure that people with intellectual disabilities can do these things.

A position paper under the title "Participation in political and public life: the basis for people with intellectual disabilities to live as equal citizens" was approved by the Annual General Assembly of Inclusion Europe on 13 May 2011. It is based on the Article 29 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stipulating that people with disabilities should have effective access to political and public life.

Article 29 stipulates that people with disabilities should have effective access to political and public life, but the study carried out by Inclusion Europe as part of the project "Accommodating Diversity for Active Participation in the European Elections" in different European countries shows this is not currently happening.

The general recommendations supported by Inclusion Europe and its members on this paper are focusing on:

• Removal of restrictions on legal capacity and provision of legal measures on accessibility.
• Flexibilisation of the voting procedure providing mobile polling stations, advance voting and/or postal voting, voting by proxy, voting at home, voting at hospitals, etc...
• Awareness-raising by electoral commissions, politicians and political parties on the importance of voting focused on particularly excluded groups, such as people with intellectual disabilities.
• Funding for the provision accessible information and training of polling station staff.
• Collaboration among NGO’s of people with intellectual disabilities and electoral commissions/government departments responsible for organizing elections at national and local level to make information more accessible.

In first place, Inclusion Europe calls for revision of the legislation on legal capacity. In many countries, partial or full deprivation of legal capacity is the major barrier preventing people with intellectual disabilities to participate in the political life of their community. Therefore, legal reforms are necessary to make sure that legislation on legal capacity does not deprive people with intellectual disabilities from this fundamental right according to the article 29 of the UN CRPD.

Positive measures to ensure that voting procedures, facilities and materials are appropriate and easy to use are also crucial. The paper contains recommendations on how to facilitate accessibility of elections for people with intellectual disabilities and eliminate physical, legal and social barriers preventing them from exercising their right to vote. This means providing accessible information, ensuring access to polling stations, raising awareness among political parties and polling station officials and fighting against the prejudice about the ability of people with disabilities to make decisions. Training for polling station officials as well as people with intellectual disabilities is also included.

Inclusion Europe and its members call upon authorities at local, national and European levels to put the recommendations into practice and recognise the knowledge and the expertise of people with intellectual disabilities in relation to their lives and their real needs. You can consult the full position paper here.

Participation of people with intellectual disabilities in political and public life of the community is one of the key topics for Inclusion Europe and its Working Group on Human Rights. In addition, at the end of 2009, Inclusion Europe together with self-advocates from its member organisations ENABLE Scotland, Nous Aussi (France) and SPMP Czech Republic embarked upon the project "Accommodating Diversity for Active Participation in the European Elections" (www.voting-for-all.eu) with an objective to facilitate higher participation of traditionally disadvantaged votersAs a result of the project, comprehensive recommendations and a collection of good practices on improving the accessibility of elections will be presented by Inclusion Europe during the European High Level Conference under the title "Voting for all! Improving the accessibility of elections in Europe" that will be held from 30-31 May 2011 in Four Points Hotel, Brussels.