Commonwealth Parliamentarians and National Human Rights Institutions

THE CHALLENGES AND BARRIERS FACING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN THE COMMONWEALTH

Around 450 million disabled people live in the Commonwealth. That’s over one-fifth of the Commonwealth’s total population. Yet for such a large group of people in society, disabled people globally have faced poorer outcomes for too long, not only in terms of health but across many areas of life where services and policies have not been designed with their needs in mind.

As Parliamentarians, we have a central role in advancing the rights of those 450 million people. Supporting the needs of constituents, including those from all marginalised groups, has always been at the heart of our democratic function.

National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) share with Parliaments the responsibility for holding governments to account for their obligations to disabled people. While Parliamentarians have a public platform to influence legislation and speak on behalf of citizens, NHRIs bring specific expertise on rights issues.

Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is the current Chair of the Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions. Equipped by Parliament with robust legal powers, we have a distinct role to play in removing the barriers that disabled people may face. Partnership working between Parliamentarians and National Human Rights Institutions is fundamental to effectively translating international treaties into national action to create stronger, fairer societies.

The UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is the international treaty that enshrines disabled people’s rights in law. To date, 50 out of 54 member states in the Commonwealth have ratified the UNCRPD.

This means that states have committed to protecting and promoting the human rights of disabled people by eliminating disability discrimination, enabling disabled people to live independently in the community, creating an inclusive education system and protecting disabled people from all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse.

Despite this commitment, some disabled people continue to face disadvantages in everyday life. From disparities in education to persistent employment and pay gaps; a chronic shortage of accessible housing and inappropriate restriction of independent living, many disabled people do not have the support to meet their basic care needs. Parliamentarians and NHRIs must work together to ensure disabled people have the same choice, control and opportunities as others do.

As Chair of the EHRC and a Member of the UK’s House of Lords, I write with a foot in both camps. This has enabled me to see firsthand the essential role that both Parliamentarians and NHRIs play in upholding the rights of disabled people – never more crucial than during the pandemic.

Due to the postponement of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and our continued chairing of the CFNHRI, I currently have the pleasure to see the joint working between Parliamentarians and NHRIs taking place in other Commonwealth nations.

In Kenya, the National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) made a number of recommendations to the Kenyan government. They sought to address the stigma about mental health conditions and improve support services. Their recommendations were echoed in parliamentary debates and the Ministry for Health subsequently scaled-up community support services, including a toll-free counselling helpline.

In Scotland, 46% of COVID-19 deaths by July 2020 were in care homes. The Scotland Human Rights Commission (SHRC) called for a human rights-based inquiry into a range of serious issues that residents and staff faced. Their recommendations were cited in the Scottish Parliament, and the First Minister committed to take an inquiry forward.

These developments, just to name a couple, would not have been possible without parliamentary support and a shared commitment to universal human rights principles. The expertise of NHRIs equips Parliamentarians with solutions to embed human rights in society.

While each NHRI differs in how they fulfil their mandate in different national contexts, members of the CFNHRI share many of the same concerns about the threat that COVID-19 continues to pose to the hard-won rights of disabled people. The CFNHRI recently published a report, ‘Protecting disabled people’s rights during COVID-19: good practice from across the Commonwealth’1, to highlight how NHRIs address the barriers facing disabled people in their jurisdictions during the pandemic.

The examples in Kenya and Scotland, as well as others in the report, call attention to three key considerations that NHRIs and Parliamentarians should apply in decision-making to uphold and progress disabled people’s rights: • creating processes to involve disabled people in decisionmaking. • collecting and using disaggregated data to inform policy, particularly where people may face multiple disadvantages. • making policies and services accessible by design, and information is available in accessible formats.

These considerations are not only relevant in emergency responses, such as to the pandemic. Entrenched gaps in processes, data and design, where institutions have failed to examine the needs of disabled people, are longstanding and evident across many different sectors.

Building these considerations into our work is simpler than it seems. Most of the time, we already have the tools we need to scrutinise issues through the dimensions of accessibility and inclusion. The expertise of disabled people’s organisations, families and disabled people themselves is invaluable and must be recognised. It’s up to us to put their expertise into practice.

Closer to home, the EHRC intervened in the case of Sarah Leadbetter2 – a registered blind woman who is categorised

as clinically extremely vulnerable. Sarah brought a case against the UK Government for failing to provide information about shielding during the pandemic in an appropriate, accessible format. She only discovered that she should have been shielding because her disabled mother was also on the shielding list and passed on the information.

We supported Sarah’s claim that the Department of Health and Social Care breached its duties under the Equality Act 2010, did not comply with the Accessible Information Standard and discriminated against Sarah under Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Department committed to improving its practices by considering the communications needs of disabled people within a set period of time, an important development not only for Sarah, but for many other disabled people who may have found themselves in the same situation.

At this point in the pandemic, it should go without saying that health and other information must be provided in accessible formats such as Braille, screen-reader compatible or Easy-Read. During a parliamentary debate on an inclusive response to COVID-19 in the UK Parliament, Members raised their concerns about gaps in accessible government communications. Echoing calls from disabled people, Parliamentarians highlighted that sign-language interpretation and closed-captions must be treated as a bare minimum for all government broadcasting. It is essential that Parliamentarians continue to hold governments to account on this front so that disabled people and others with particular communications needs have the information they need to protect themselves.

Parliamentarians have a significant role to play in promoting and progressing cultural change. Championing human rights is not just about inspecting and enforcing, it’s also about embodying values, reminding people that human rights are not abstract or theoretical, but support real people.

NHRIs across the Commonwealth are shifting away from academic, technical communications to a style that is approachable and more accessible. We also need to practice what we preach by reducing communication barriers too.

“Parliamentarians have a significant role to play in promoting and progressing cultural change. Championing human rights is not just about inspecting and enforcing, it’s also about embodying values, reminding people that human rights are not abstract or theoretical, but support real people. ”

The EHRC, in its capacity as the Chair of the CFNHRI, commissioned the work of two disabled artists to bring the CFNHRI’s report on disability to life. Their lived experience illustrated the report with understanding, originality and detail. This is an example of a small step we can take to reduce the barriers to employment that disabled people face, while modelling our communications effectively and expressing our values creatively.

The partnership between Parliament and an NHRI is crucial to the functioning of a rights-respecting society. Though we are separate entities, and Parliamentarians must protect NHRIs’ independence, the confluence of our respective roles provides a systematic framework through which we can address some of the most pressing issues facing disabled people and other marginalised groups.

Our shared commitment to eliminating barriers that disabled people face paves the way for governments to implement meaningful change. We must continue to work together strategically to make the most of our distinct powers and call out failings that leave disabled people behind. By drawing on the expertise of NHRIs to embed human rights in society, Parliamentarians can help to rebuild a fairer post-pandemic world that supports the full inclusion of disabled people across the Commonwealth.

For more information about the Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, please visit www.cfnhri.org.

Baroness Kishwer Falkner is the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Chair of the Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions. She also serves as a Member of the House of Lords in the UK Parliament, where she is a Cross Bench Member. In the Lords, she was a spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats on Home Affairs, Justice and Foreign Affairs from 2004-2015. She has also served on several Parliamentary Committees including Chairing the EU Sub-Committee on Financial Affairs, and as a Member of the EU Select Committee, Constitution Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.